“Cretinetti, although he is a simple man, finds it impossible to live honestly. He is penniless and sitting on a park bench ask- ing himself what is to be done, when a young man surprises him, pointing a pistol to his head and demanding money. Cretinetti explains the situation and asks the robber to let him join his gang; thus the two go together to the criminals’ hideout, a dive in a poor quarter of the city. The gang decide to put the novice to the test, and he is given a pistol: he at once tries to rob a well-dressed gentleman, who, instead of handing over his money, pulls the gun out of his hands and begans to give him religious advice (…)”.

Anonymous, “The Kinematograph and Lantern Weekly”, Lon­don, 6 May 1909

“An uneven work, but certainly among those most illustrative of Deed’s aim: to make comedy out of objects, as Erik Satie wished to do with music ‘with knives and forks’ from the table; to create comedy from places, transforming the protagonist of the come­dy, the man, into a dynamic element of the landscape, scarcely more in the way than a statuette which has broken at its base (…) Cretinetti King of Thieves combines some of the best inventions of Deed (the splendid, striking scene of the car-driver: Cretinetti wants to rob everybody at whatever cost; at the first attempt he tries to carry off the car in his arms but then satisfies himself in the end with a gigantic wheel), but also several evident signs of anguish. Deed is at first pursued by the police and then by the criminals, who consider him a traitor. At the end, after a series of fortuitous incidents, the latter see him again and carry him off in triumph. But the final image, of emblematic significance, is more menacing than comic (they have placed on his head a bunch of keys which hang over his brows like a crown of steel thorns). (…)”

Paolo Cherchi Usai, Livio Jacob, in Le cinéma italien de la “Prise de Rome” à “Rome ville ouverte”. 1905-1945, edited by Aldo Bernardini and Jean A. Gili, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1986, p. 84