The Hot Rock is a 1972 comedydrama caper film directed by Peter Yates from a screenplay by William Goldman, based on Donald E. Westlakes novel of the same name, which introduced his longrunning John Dortmunder character. The film stars Robert Redford, George Segal, Ron Leibman, Paul Sand, Moses Gunn and Zero Mostel.
Dortmunder and Kelp are joined by driver Stan Murch Leibman and explosives expert Allan Greenberg Sand, concocting an elaborate plan to steal the gem. Although the scheme and each subsequent one is carefully plannedand keeps increasing in costsomething always goes awry, and the quartet has to steal the diamond again and again.First off, the diamond is swallowed by Greenberg when he alone gets caught by the museum guards during the initial heist. Dortmunder, Kelp, and Murch, at the urging of Greenbergs rotund father Abe Zero Mostel, a lawyer, help Greenberg escape from state prison, but they then find he does not have the diamond. After Greenberg tells his partners he hid the rock in the police station after bodily evacuating it, the quartet break into the precinct jail by helicopter, but the rock is not where Greenberg hid it. Greenberg discloses that his father Abe was the only other person who knew where it was. ........
Source: Wikipedia