Olsen-banden overgiver sig aldrig (1979)

A break-in at the safe of the Petersen & Johanssons company fails: There is no cash in the safe, only computer tapes and continuous-feed printouts. The old managing director has recently died, and with him the old days. The new director has introduced new technology and also turns up unexpectedly and calls the police, after which Egon is sent to prison. In prison, after taking a course in management and business administration, Egon has acquired skills in manipulation. After his release, he plans to stick to legal crimes and borrow and invest money instead of committing illegal crimes and stealing money. To that end, Egon intends to acquire a controlling interest in the reputable department store Magasin du Nord, which belongs to the country’s largest holding company, Daninvest. Daninvest has been running at a loss for a long time and has been cooking its books to keep its share price up. Egon must obtain the true accounts for stockbroker Bang-Johansen and his assistant, business economist Hallandsen. Their publication will cause Daninvest shares to plummet on the stock exchange, after which Daninvest can be taken over for a song. Under an agreement with his cellmate, Holm Hansen (Hallandsen’s predecessor), Egon is to receive the controlling interest in Magasin du Nord in return. Yvonne comes quite close to learning about these plans, but is preoccupied with the idea of becoming a grandmother, as Børge and Fie are expecting their first child. She is convinced the department store has everything a baby needs. The heist at Daninvest is carried out with the help of precise timing, phone calls, a typewriter and an office chair, and is completed in 2 minutes and 43 seconds. Egon goes to the stock exchange and hands the true accounts to Bang-Johansen, who immediately informs the stock exchange, the Employers’ Association, the LO (Danish Confederation of Trade Unions) and “the minister.” Bang-Johansen represents a group of multinational corporations, EMCA, which, with the politicians’ approval, intends to take over Europe’s entire economy. With Daninvest in EMCA’s hands, the process can finally begin. The plan must under no circumstances become public. Hallandsen sets up Olsen Holding, -Invest, -International SA (Société anonyme), -Export, -Import, -Hyacint, -Inc. and GmbH, making Egon the owner of them all, so they can handle the shares in Magasin du Nord and avoid paying tax in Denmark. The agreement between Egon and Holm Hansen was that Magasin du Nord would be kept out of EMCA’s takeover, but Bang-Johansen does not comply with Egon’s demand and has Magasin du Nord closed. He obtains the minister’s signature on the EMCA agreement and is then to travel to Brussels to place it in the vault at the headquarters of the European Community (EC). The gang, however, stops Bang-Johansen’s limousine with the help of a fruit cart and uses a forklift to steal the document briefcase from the car’s trunk. They take it back to Hallandsen at the stock exchange to exchange it for the Magasin shares. Egon clearly knows too much; on Bang-Johansen’s orders, Hallandsen hires the hitman Bøffen to make Egon “disappear and stay gone for good.” Egon is to be blown up, but Kjeld and Benny save him, while the briefcase and documents go with Bang-Johansen to the vault in Brussels for safekeeping until the EC summit, which is later to be held in Copenhagen. In another attempt to secure ownership of Magasin du Nord, the gang travels to the EC headquarters, where exploiting cultural differences, among other things, along with a porn magazine and a sailor’s balloon, gives them access to the briefcase in the vault. This is despite the fact that the box of cream cakes Kjeld has brought with him sets off a bomb alert at headquarters and is destroyed. Back in Copenhagen, Egon goes to Hallandsen at the stock exchange again to exchange the briefcase for Magasin du Nord. Hallandsen had not expected this and faints. Detective Jensen arrives at Bang-Johansen’s request and searches the office. Egon gets away, but Jensen finds and recognizes the EMCA documents, informs the minister and takes them to safety in an armored briefcase at the police headquarters. They are to remain there until the meeting with the heads of government of the EC, which is to take place at the minister’s private residence in Hellerup. In the meantime, the key to the armored briefcase is kept in the minister’s private safe at home. By exploiting the minister’s wife’s obsession with cleaning and weakness for port wine, the Olsen Gang steals the key to the armored briefcase. Benny and Kjeld also obtain a copy of the police’s schedule and security arrangements for the EC summit, pretending to be a journalist and a photographer, respectively. The gang needs a tank to enter unnoticed the hermetically sealed-off area around the minister’s residence and get inside, then take the EMCA documents from the armored briefcase during the EC summit itself. Preparations for the operation are interrupted by the news that Fie is about to give birth, so Kjeld goes to the maternity clinic, unfortunately taking with him in his midwife’s bag a socket wrench crucial to the heist. Benny and Egon pick up the bag at the clinic on their way to the military training ground, where they plan to borrow a tank during a smoking break. Unfortunately, Benny has picked up a real midwife’s bag, without the socket wrench, but Egon manages instead to open the tank hatch with a pair of obstetric forceps from the bag. By taking advantage of the lunch break, using moderate force (something that otherwise never features in the gang’s arsenal) against a security guard, and getting ash on the minister’s wife’s carpet, they manage to steal the documents from the armored briefcase. The next day, Egon visits Hallandsen, but it is too late. Since the Danish documents were not present at the summit, negotiations broke down and Denmark was expelled from the EC, meaning the documents had lost their value as a bargaining chip. In the meantime, Børge and Fie have become parents to a boy, little Kjeld. Benny is chosen as the boy’s godfather, while Egon is arrested for owning the companies Hallandsen set up for him, which were intended for tax evasion, and is taken back to prison, while Magasin du Nord reopens.