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A quality, London-set little thriller, a mix of film noir and kitchen sink realism. It's a bitter tale of four desperate men, brought together by chance and the same predicament - the need of money. And fast. Those men are :
Richard Basehart - A New Yorker who can't afford to get his wife (a seemingly impossibly young-looking Joan Collins) back to the States away from her doting mother, in order to start a new life .
Stanley Baker - A champion boxer who has lost his hearing in one ear, his sight in one eye and his hand to amputation in order to win enough prize money so he can set up his own business away from the ring. Now he's lost his winnings too so his wife can bail out her convicted brother.
John Ireland - A U.S serviceman whose marriage to his adulterous, film-star wife (a smoldering Gloria Grahame) is in tatters. Is money the answer to his problems?
and Laurence Harvey - The vivacious playboy who brings them altogether to execute a disastrous raid on a post office. His need for some cash is purely based on greed and his pompous father (Robert Morley) won't give him a penny. As Michael Caine once said, "If you look at Englishmen in films they are either homosexual, bisexual, cold, repressed, f***ed up, no good with women, bad lovers, kinky or insane." Harvey's character is practically all of these.
As for the film itself, whilst it's atmospherically shot, Gilberts's direction is a little flat (it's far from tense) and the dialogue fluctuates from quite poor to quite clever. Still, it's worth a watch for the leads, particularly Basehart and Baker (playing the typical working-class hero of his early career) who both turn in fine performances. Enjoyable.
3/5
