Property Is No Longer a Theft (Italian: La Proprietà Non è Più un Furto) is a 1973 Italian comedy film directed and written by Ello Petri. It stars Flavio Bucci as Total, a bank clerk who ironically has an allergy for paper money. He develops an envious and adversarial relationship with a man known only as "The Butcher", one of the banks wealthy clients and an owner of a butcher shop. The film also stars Daria Niclodi as Anita, the Butcher's mistress.
After an armed robbery occurs at the bank Total works in, he quits his job and dedicates his life to tormenting the Butcher after his envy develops into hatred and a desire to deprive him of everything he has. As the film progresses, whether or not The Butcher is a victim of Total's malicious vendetta or a vulture capitalist exploiting the lower classes for his benefit and fully deserving of Total's campaign of terror and theft is called into question.
Property Is No Longer a Theft contains examples of:
- Angry Guard Dog: A bizarre example. The bank itself has several of them hidden behind the teller desks and they can be released upon the push of a button. They're let loose on the bank robbers during the robbery scene and chase most of them away apart from one poor sap who gets mauled and then repeatedly kicked by an angry Butcher.
- Bank Robbery: Happens early in the film and is what drives Total to quit his job.
- Evil Is Petty: Well, more like Thieves Are Petty, but Total starts out this way as he steals The Butcher's knife and then his hat. Later subverted when Total's thefts and assaults against The Butcher's lifestyle escalate.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The Butcher is named The Butcher because... he's a butcher.
- Poke the Poodle: Total's theft of The Butcher's knife and hat.
