Crime/Thriller – The Magnificent 60s

The Pursuers (1961) ***

I tell you now there’s nothing particularly great or particularly awful about this tidy British programmer, made to take advantage of the Eady Levy and suitable only for the bottom half of a double bill, and yet it still has quite a bit to offer. It’s a chase picture, a hunt, but the emphasis, despite the title, is not on the hunters but on the hunted.

Who in this case turns out to be one of those evil people hiding out under the guise of the normal. Before emigrating to Britain, Luther (Cyril Shaps) was a Nazi commandment of a concentration camp. David (Francis Mathews), member of secret group operating out of Paris (cue an establishing shot of the Eiffel Tower), has been despatched not to out him but to kill him.

Luther runs a respectable business in London, and what makes this so interesting is that all the people he turns to for help are all in respectable businesses, yet all have war crimes to hide and appear to have done so successfully. So if you are a famous film director, the British movie industry will welcome you with open arms and scarcely a trace of suspicion about your past.

Since British food was generally in the 1960s regarded as the worst in the western world, then any German who can add a bit of culinary class to a restaurant is also more than welcome. And so it goes on. It’s like these people have managed to disappear into a witness protection program. Although the Mossad hunted down war criminals and had recently located Eichmann in South America and brought him back for a show trial in Israel, it’s clear there was no coordinated worldwide hunt for Nazi war criminals.

When his old buddies don’t want to disturb their carefully constructed facades by helping him out, Luther turns to the underworld. At first, it looks like he’ll get away. He plans to take the next flight out. He’s got plenty dough stashed away.

But what has prompted his fear of discovery is that his apartment’s been burgled and the burglar has daubed a swastika on a mirror. But nothing else has been taken and the police refuse to post a guard outside his house. Except something has been taken – the most important page in his passport has been cut out so that escape route is, temporarily, blocked.

Nightclub owner and gangster Rico (Sheldon Lawrence) fingers him for being someone who can easily and subtly be relieved of his cash, so he sends over sex worker Jenny (Susan Denny) to chat him up.

Ostensibly taking pity on him, Jenny, who escaped the concentration camps, agrees to hide him away in her apartment, presumably able to show sympathy while at the same time finding a way to rob him. She believes his tale of being a good German, a soldier forced to fight.

Unfortunately, this is too loosely constructed for the movie to take advantage of this situation. Though, technically, he is forced to confront one of his victims, in reality her tale washes over him and there’s no sign of remorse. You might not expect that, of course, mass murderers, especially ones who believe what they are doing is right, are unlikely to examine their consciences. But, still, the fact that he shows no reaction at all, makes this just appear a narrative contrivance, since after all, we already know what the Nazis did in the concentration camps.

This came out after Judgement at Nuremberg (1961) which was more specific about the Nazi atrocities, so we wouldn’t have needed any further exposition. That it does work is down to Jenny, sufficiently taken in by this imposter to open up her soul.

Anyways our Luther is a clever clogs and working out that, since his pursuers know both that he lacks a passport and that he’s already been turned away at the airport, he reckons the last thing they’ll expect him to do is try to use that escape route again.

There’s more shootout than you’d expect from what appeared initially as a straightforward drama. But it poses more interesting questions rather than being a rewarding thriller.

As far as I can make out this proved the only top-billed role in the career of Cyril Shaps (Return of a Stranger, 1961) but he enjoyed a very healthy run as a supporting actor. Susan Denny (Too Hot to Handle, 1960) only made one more film. Francis Mathews (Crossplot, 1969) made more of an impact on television as Paul Temple (1969-1971) and as the voice of Captain Scarlet in Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967-1968).

Directed by Geoffrey Grayson (The Lamp in Assassin Mews, 1962) from a script by Brian Clemens (The Corrupt Ones / The Peking Medallion) and David Nicholl in his debut.

For such an undemanding piece, asks interesting questions.

The Mad Room (1969) ***

Tight little thriller lifted by excellent performances from Stella Stevens and Shelley Winters focusing on murders a dozen years apart. Mandy (Barbara Sammeth) and older brother George (Michael Burns), incarcerated in a mental institution after the murder of their parents, the twist being nobody can discover which child was responsible, are released into the custody of big sister Ellen (Stella Stevens), secretary to wealthy widow Mrs Armstrong (Shelley Winters) and betrothed to her son Sam (Skip Ward).

While concealing the children’s past, Ellen persuades Mrs Armstrong to offer them lodgings, that arrangement coming unstuck when the kids demand a room where they can go “to work things out.” Armstrong is a bit barmy, engaged on building beside her home a museum to her husband, hence contractors and construction workers on site, and a horde of “ladies who lunch” involved in fundraising. She has also appropriated masseur Armand (Lou Kane), husband of alcoholic Mrs Racine (Beverly Garland), to fulfil her sexual needs.

*Don’t worry – the poster doesn’t give the game away.*
*The blood comes from Stella Stevens discovering the corpse.*

When Mrs Armstrong threatens to chuck the kids out, she comes to a sticky end, and the question is raised again of whether Mandy or George are responsible. Mandy is the more highly-strung, stubborn and likely to challenge authority. George appears predatory, stalking the maid. Both are convinced the other is guilty.

Meanwhile, Ellen undertakes to remove the body and pretend Armstrong met her death by accident at a beauty spot, no mean feat given the palaver caused by the builders outside and the constant need for construction decisions and the unexpected arrival of a posse of ladies including the alcoholic Mrs Racine intent on raising merry hell.

It’s part whodunit, part nutcases-on-the-loose, part film noir, part slasher picture, and part grand guignol. Hands are severed and blood is used to daub flowers on the walls. It’s tense enough even before Armstrong’s demise. She’s not only a loony, but untrustworthy, selfish, capricious and demanding, and it’s as much as Ellen can stand to constantly iron out all the loose ends in her employer’s life. But she sounds believable, an earnest do-gooder even while conspiring against what she sees as Ellen’s gold-digging.

Ellen, life thrown into turmoil after the death of her overbearing impoverished parents and only now building a new identity removed from the shadow of the children, faces the prospect of losing her ideal future. While it would have suited her for the children never to be released, she exhibits surprisingly a strong emotional attachment to her siblings, willing to both shelter and protect them, and conceal again their crimes.

Initial tension revolves around a chase, savage dogs, a shifty maid and Ellen dealing with the manipulative Mrs Armstrong, holding her own long enough until she is safely married, while further pressure builds with the necessity to cover up the murder, explain Mrs Armstrong’s absence, cope with the sudden influx of people and ascertain who has the murderous tendencies. There are some excellent scenes and twisty payoffs, and quite a bit of misdirection – the chase, rabid dogs, a childish song – and some inspired drama such as Mrs Racine letting rip, and Mrs Armstrong’s growing puzzlement.

Stella Stevens (Sol Madrid, 1968), normally eye candy or in a supporting role, is a revelation as Ellen, creating a grounded personality, with several changes of emotion and except for being a little pop-eyed on occasion carries off the part tremendously well and not falling prey to the temptation of grandstanding. Shelley Winters (A House Is Not a Home, 1964), who knows all about playing larger-than-life characters, tones it down here, even the obvious nuttiness reined in.

Michael Burns (That Cold Day in the Park, 1969) is the better of the two younger actors, while Barbara Sammeth’s (Foul Play, 1978) stiffness could be put down to inexperience – this was her debut. Otherwise former horror queen Beverly Garland (Stark Fear, 1962) is the pick.

Godfather of Harlem – Season One (2019) *****

Harlem gangster kingpin Bumpy Johnson barely lasted five minutes of Ridley Scott’s masterpiece American Gangster (2007), just long enough to show the various elements of his complex character, his ruthlessness, his generosity and his awareness of a fast-changing world. To compensate, here’s a television mini-series devoted to his life, that, like the Scott epic, spreads out beyond mere shooting and killing and takes in endemic racism and politics.

As well as Johnson (Forest Whitaker) various real-life characters are knitted into the fabric: firebrand Malcolm X (Nigel Thatch), Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr (Giancarlo Esposito), Mafia bosses Vincent ‘Chin’ Gigante (Vincent D’Onofrio) and Frank Costello (Paul Sorvino), boxer Cassius Clay/Mohammed Ali (Deric Augustine), another Mafia thug Joey ‘Bananas’ Bonnano (Chazz Palminteri), heiress Amy Vanderbilt (Joanne Kelly) and Mafia snitch Joseph Valachi (Richard Petrocelli) – subject of an entire film The Valachi Papers (1972) played by Charles Bronson.

Initially, I had been less keen on this tale and was on the point of giving up after a couple of episodes, but it proved a slow-burn and once the narrative extended out into the wider world of politics I was hooked.

The story begins in 1963 with Bumpy Johnson released from Alcatraz after a ten-year stretch and trying to recover his power base in Harlem which has been encroached upon by Vincent Gigante who shows little sign of letting go. At its heart, traditionally, this would focus on the battle between Bumpy and Gigante over who controls Harlem, both restrained from all-out war by dictate of the Five Families who rule Mafia New York.

But it’s the narrative tentacles that soon take over. Bumpy, intending to go straight romantically-speaking and not play around any more, rebuffs former lover Amy Vanderbilt, even to the extent of turning down the $300,000 loan he requires for survival if it means dropping his pants for her. Ironically, though his wife Mayme (Ilfenesh Hadera), while playing the jealousy card and appearing to do her sexy best to keep him interested solely in her, is actually enjoying an affair with a young boxer.

Powell, desperate for headlines, makes the case that the cops are always pulling in Black gangsters over the numbers racket while ignoring all the Italians involved in the same illegal activity. Malcolm X, Bumpy’s longtime buddy, is planning to overthrow the pacific nature of the Islamic cause and turn it into a violent representation of the Civil Rights cause.

Even Black recording studios refuse to produce civil rights records in case it brings down the wrath of the ruling White community.

*Not to be confused with this 1973 Blaxploitation number which started life as ‘Black Caesar’ until some clever clogs thought to take advantage of ‘The Godfather’ boom.*

And just to add some more spark to this tinderbox, Bumpy’s daughter Elise (Antoinette Crowe-Legacy) is a heroin addict who, in her recovery, begins working for Malcolm X, though she’s not above snitching on him to the leader of the Islamic movement. Gigante’s daughter Stella (Lucy Fry) has taken as a lover Black musician Teddy Greene (Kelvin Harrison Jr), an arrangement that infuriates her father to the extent that he plans to rub out Teddy. Though, if he just let matters play out, he could rely on the cops to disrupt that relationship. Any Black man caught in a clinch with a White woman is assumed to be a pimp and the girl a prostitute, so it’s standard practice to chuck them both in prison. Gigante confesses to a priest that he killed Joey Bananas’ son. And while despised by Gigante, Bumpy is friendly enough with Frank Costello to meet up for games of chess.

And if that’s not enough to keep the narrative wheels well and truly greased, there are some terrific power play subplots. Gigante wants Cassius Clay, then just a contender for the heavyweight crown, to throw a fight and Bumpy backs the boxer as much out of the chance to annoy his rival as in sympathy for the pugilist.

Bumpy goes into partnership with Joey Bananas, again to thwart Gigante, only to find himself outsmarted when Gigante rigs the numbers racket so that Bumpy is faced with a debt of $300,000 that he doesn’t have. He tries to erase the debt by wiping out Valachi but that fails so he’s facing ruin.

In passing, we learn how the numbers racket actually works. The winning number is the last three digits of the amount taken at the box office at a racecourse. One of Gigante’s thugs compromises the gay accountant in charge of doing the adding up at the racecourse and gets him to change the number to Bumpy’s detriment. Normally, there’s no point rigging the number, and the Mafia plays hardball with anyone interfering with their system, but this time the whole of Harlem has bet on a number that has particular significance. So Gigante makes sure this number comes up so that Bumpy’s number is up.

The dramas and crises are evenly meted out and there’s scarcely a character who at some point is not struggling with a major personal dilemma. This has the kind of plotting that Taylor Sheridan excels at, setting up characters facing not just the usual problems of dealing with rivals but with characters facing family issues.

This season ends with the assassination of JFK which, ironically, helps the Mafia, the FBI’s major investigation of the criminal gangs being sidelined in the aftermath of the Presidential killing, and, equally ironically, pulls the plug on Bumpy’s plan to safeguard his own survival.

Great cast in superb form especially Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland, 2007) and Vincent D’Onofrio (The Eyes of Tammy Faye, 2021). Nigel Thatch is especially convincing as the soft-spoken firebrand – he had played Malcolm X before in Selma (2104) – while Giancarlo Esposito (Maxxine, 2024) has a ball as a tricksy but charming character.

Perhaps as surprising is the focus on the women who in gangster pictures are generally relegated to the roles of molls. Here, all defy the males in their lives. Ilfenesh Hadera (Highest 2 Lowest, 2025), as Bumpy’s wife Mayme, stands up to her husband with her upfront involvement in the civil rights movement while Antoinette Crowe-Legacy (Passing, 2021) as his daughter Elise not only joins the Nation of Islam but threatens to blow apart the family by revealing a major secret, and Lucy Fry (I Live Here Now, 2025) as Gigante’s daughter resorts to violence to take revenge on her father.

Hugely enjoyable – and thought-provoking.

I’m hooked. Catch it on Amazon Prime.

The Informers / Underworld Informers (1963) ***

Who would be a film director? One minute you’re in charge of Swiss Family Robinson (1960), Disney’s biggest live-action venture since 20,000 Leagues under the Sea (1954), and knocking up a home run at the box office. Then you’re handed a massive budget, mega-cast and huge logistics with the added responsibility of saving near-bankrupt 20^th Century Fox with 70mm roadshow The Longest Day (1962) and then you’re hurled into two more roadshows, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965) and Battle of the Bulge (1965), the latter in Cinerama, again big budgets and all-star casts.

And in between you’re relegated to this black-and-white run-of-the-mill London cop thriller. Maybe you said you were fed up with all those stars and big budgets and fancied a more intimate number. Maybe not. Maybe you just weren’t flying as high as you imagined and like anyone else you just had to eat.

While you’re not contending with the likes of John Wayne, Robert Mitchum or Henry Fonda, at least for The Informers you’ve a pretty good British cast, many of whom would become marquee attractions or make their bones in television. Star Nigel Patrick would head up the Zero One TV series (1963-1965), Harry Andrews (Play Dirty, 1968) would be a sterling movie supporting player. Colin Blakely would be Dr Watson in Billy Wilder’s The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), Derren Nesbitt would shine as a Gestapo officer in Where Eagles Dare (1968), and Oscar-nominated Frank Finlay would be one of The Three Musketeers (1973).

This crime tale has inefficient cops being led a merry dance by efficient bank robbers. While top cop Supt Bestwick (Harry Andrews) puts his faith in the new-fangled wire-tapping and electronic eavesdropping, underling Chief Inspector Johnnoe (Nigel Patrick) prefers the more traditional method of relying on informers, “snouts” in underworld parlance, such as the perpetually sozzled Jim Ruskin (John Cowley).

The cops might have had a better chance if the robbers weren’t listening in to the cops or using the informer route to mislead them. While Johnnoe might get the better of gangster kingpin Hoyle (Derren Nesbitt) in a verbal duel, he’s resolutely outwitted when it comes to criminal wiles, duped by another crook Sale (Frank Finlay) and gangster’s moll Maisie (Margaret Whiting) so that he ends up on a corruption charge, which puts him out of the investigation.

Luckily, he’s got a smart determined wife Mary (Katherine Woodville) who sets about clearing his name with the help of junk dealer Charlie (Colin Blakely), brother of murdered snout Jim.

Most of this is what would be later termed police procedural as the cops follow up leads and enter the lion’s den and get trapped in bureaucracy until Johnnoe, suspended from duty and out on bail, no longer has to play by the rules. The rogue cop was more of an American movie tradition than the British but Johnnoe makes a good stab at it.

Charlie’s not inclined to play by the rules either and gets together a mob of his own to hit the robbers and revenge his brother. Given the Brits aren’t armed to the teeth, when it comes to the battle royal, they go in there with wrenches and other hand-tools supplemented by the occasional knife rather than machine guns or shotguns. But it’s still an astonishing fight for this era of British crime.

There’s some unusual emotional elements, too, particularly with the moll and a surprising sequence involving Roy Kinnear, generally not considered to have such emotional depth. Did I mention the cat? The one who attempts, for fun, to foil an escape by a trapped cop.

Not quite in the vein of the later British crime thrillers like Get Carter (1971) or Villain (1971) but certainly moving in a harder-nosed direction.

Ken Annakin is almost going back to his British cinematic roots and proving he can do the business on a small budget. Written by Alun Falconer (Never Let Go, 1960) from the novel by Douglas Warner.

Better class of British crime.

I caught this on YouTube but it’s as likely to turn up on Talking Pictures TV.

Fury at Smuggler’s Bay (1961) ***

Surprising to find so much moral complexity when it seemed we would be restricted to discussing the difference between good bad smugglers and bad bad smugglers and good good bad guys and bad bad guys. Given the limited running time (it clocks in at 82 minutes) we’ve also just got about enough time to take in hypocrisy.

Compromise, too, for that matter. Squire’s son Christopher (John Fraser) is inclined to warn girlfriend smuggler’s daughter Louise (Michele Mercier) that his father Squire Trevenyan (Peter Cushing) is setting soldiers on the local smugglers. The local highwayman known as The Captain (William Franklyn) is considered something of a decent fellow because once he’s robbed travellers going along the road one way he’ll make sure they’re not robbed on their return.

Trevenyan finds the most convenient way to prevent his son marrying beneath himself is to imprison Louise’s father Francois (George Coulouris) on the grounds of receiving stolen goods – his sentence is deportation to Australia. He’s helped by his son having to run off to London after killing one of the smugglers in self-defense, the father assuming anyone witness to the struggle will side with the smuggler.

Aware that maybe the plot’s getting a bit too cute for anyone’s liking, director John Gilling makes the most of the thunderous seas, boats getting battered to bits in the storm, waves hammering the wheelhouse, men swept overboard from vessels losing their way because rudimentary lighthouses have been shattered by predatory smugglers (known as “wreckers”). Stunning Cornwall scenery also helps though beaches being littered with heavy-duty rocks rather than glistening sand tends to inhibit action sequences.

The wreckers are the bad bad smugglers, the ordinary locals, dealing with a bit of rum and tobacco to avoid the exciseman or helping themselves to loot from legitimate shipwrecks, are the good bad smugglers.

You can always depend on a good bad highwayman to defend an innocent girl against a bad bad smuggler. As you might expect the Squire is deliberately ineffectual since he’s being blackmailed by Black John (Bernard Lee), leader of the wreckers, because Christopher is the result of an indiscretion. So it’s left to the son to race back from London and set things to rights.

Although there’s a bit of fenceplay – there is one good duel between Christopher and The Captain – it’s not really a swashbuckler, a knife or pistol or musket the more likely weapon of choice, and since the director’s enamored of the silhouette against the darkening sky quite often what takes place is obscured.

Which helps the final section of the plot, as Christopher puts abroad that he’s dead while secretly signing up with Black John. This could have fitted into the Renown portfolio given the number of twists. Traps backfire. Ruses fail. Falling for the tale that his son is dead, Trevenyan puts the boy in mortal danger by sending troops to the beaches. Various rivals have to team up for the good of the cause.

By the time it turns into high adventure most of the moral complexities have been resolved.

The only problem is it’s the bad guys who steal the picture. While Peter Cushing (The Skull, 1965) continues his evolution as an actor of considerable scope, John Fraser (Tamahine, 1963) is a cardboard cut-out of a hero. But Bernard Lee, before assuming the mantle of M in the James Bond series, cuts loose as the bad bad guy while William Franklyn (The Big Day, 1960) does a dastardly good job of creating a charming good bad guy. For a bonus there’s rising French star Michele Mercier (You Can’t Win ‘Em All/Dubious Patriots, 1970).

Written and directed, with some panache, by John Gilling (The Pirates of Blood River, 1962).

Entertaining matinee fare with a soupcon of complexity.

Fame Is The Name of the Game (1966) ***

Glossy entry into the investigation business, no down’n’dirty private eyes this time round, racking up alimony, office the saloon of a bar, little in the way of fashionable attire, best friends with the bottle. Okay, so Jeff Dillon (Anthony Franciosa) is a newshound not a private dick – same difference.

Main problem is that the three main characters seem to be in different movies. Jeff, all teeth, comes over like he’d rather be down on the beach surfing, his unwanted assistant Peggy (Susan Saint James) like she’s auditioning for Nancy Drew, and artist Leona (Jill St John) like she’s in the femme fatale business.

*Small-screen effort in the U.S., released on the big screen in the rest of the world,*
*a fairly common move at the time.*

And it takes forever for our intrepid newshound to work out that the dead girl Ellen found in an upmarket hotel room has been murdered rather than committing suicide. Any time the plot looks like slowing down up pops an interesting character. Gangster Ben Welcome’s (Jack Klugman) secretary (Myrna Ross) turns out to have a neat side hustle as a bodyguard, stiletto heels at the ready to pin a man to the ground.

Ex-baseball star Dizzy (Jay C. Flippen) is a massive fan of passive smoking, the only way, given his health condition, that he can get any smoke into his lungs. Telephone operator Pat (Nanette Fubray) uses her smiles for wiles while sticking it to the man. A beggar doesn’t bother to check if a corpse might be still alive before trying to steal his boots.

While the dialog isn’t exactly full of zingers, it does have some zip and repartee. For too long, though, the plot ambles along rather than anything else.

The dead woman had been married to loser Eddie (Robert Duvall) and befriended Dizzy before ending up as the mistress of billionaire Cruikshank (Lee Bowman). But once the dots begin to be joined, it takes on a seamier tone, sexual coercion, blackmail, murder.

There’s a terrific twist at the end which makes up for a lot of the aimlessness.

A shame this came out the same year as Harper/The Moving Target which reinvigorated the genre and had as its leading man a sex symbol who didn’t act – as Franciosa does here – as if he was a sex symbol. Anthony Franciosa (Fathom, 1967) is the main problem. He’s too full of himself, constantly flashing his teeth as if that’s a get-out-of-jail-free card, and lacks the edge the role requires.

Both Jill St John (Tony Rome, 1967) and Susan Saint James (New Face in Hell, 1967) fall into the rising star category, though the former is easily the more accomplished. Interesting supporting cast in Jack Klugman (The Graduate, 1967), Jack Weston (The Thomas Crown Affair, 1968), Robert Duvall (The Godfather, 1972) and Jay C. Flippen (Hellfighters, 1968).

Ably spun by director Stuart Rosenberg (Cool Hand Luke, 1967) from a screenplay by Ranald MacDougall (Dark of the Sun/The Mercenaries, 1968).

This had an unusual genesis in that it was one of the first made-for-tv movies. Universal promoted the 90-minute feature as a world premiere and it turned into an unusual series with three different stars – the others were Gene Barry (Marco 7, 1967) and Robert Stack (Borderlines/ The Caretakers, 1963) – taking turns headlining an episode.

While classier fare than you might have expected from television during the 1960s, it came up short when compared to similar ideas played out on the big screen. Where it did end up in the cinema, it was as a supporting feature.

You can catch it on YouTube. The streamer even chucks in about 20 ads for free.

Mutiny (2026) **** – Seen at the Cinema

Hooray! The Stath is back. After the turgid Shelter (2026) and the disappointing A Working Man (2025), and while this doesn’t reach the heights of The Beekeeper (2024), it’s a more than serviceable action thriller that will keep his fans – such as moi – happy. Though you’d need Alistair MacLean, “the king of the action thriller” (though I say so myself – see my latest book), to pump some novelty into a seagoing action piece.

This does have one other novelty for a Statham thriller in that it hands him a female buddy, a companion in arms I hasten to add rather than a lame love interest. I’m guessing that should this turn into a global hit, a sequel will be on the cards, where he is called into to help said lady who will transition into a damsel in distress, especially given she’s a single mom, a category which seems irresistible to screenwriters.

But, basically, Statham does what he does best, which is to crack heads, strangle, stab and shoot bad guys, solve a mystery and right whatever wrongs have been committed. On the strict confines of a cargo ship, there aren’t so many places to hide, not that our Jason is the hiding sort, so it’s a barrage of non-stop action as either the bad guys come after him or he goes after the bad guys. There’s some novelty too in the killing. As well as the standard weapons, our hero makes use of a ship’s hook and a handy harpoon, not to mention a Rolex watch.

I have to warn you the title is a bit of misnomer, but it serves its purpose, which is to warn of an armed uprising on board a ship.

Cole Reed (Jason Statham) ain’t a marine. He’s bodyguard to billionaire shipping magnate Tibu Campallo (Ramon Tikaram) who has just retired when he’s killed in Bangkok in an ambush organized by Jaran Daniles (Simon Kluth) for reasons that are unclear except that Tibu is on the point of selling his business. Naturally, corruption being what it is these days, Cole is figured for the murder.

A clue leads him to sneak aboard the Artemis, one of Campallo’s gigantic vessels. He hides out in a lifeboat, the modern kind that offers easy concealment not an antique of Titanic vintage. Also, on board, reluctantly, and at very short notice is replacement Third Mate Angie Ellis (Annabelle Wallis).

Cole’s investigations lead him to a hidden cargo of trafficked people. Angie finds the same but when she reports back to Captain Marko Madsen (Roland Moller) she quickly realizes he’s in on the game. So she skedaddles and eventually teams up with Cole, though they are at various times separated so that Cole can do what he does best which is to escape from impossible situations while it’s left to Angie to manage a wound and incapacitate various crew members on the bridge, from which she can send out a distress signal.

The signal is picked up by a passing U.S. naval vessel commanded by Capt Adam Spencer (Adrian Lester). You think the Yanks are going to get there and rescue Cole and the people, but there’s a twist, the trafficked people are due to be offloaded mid-ocean to another gang. So although Cole has already thinned out the competition, the new arrivals bulk it back up.

It’s preposterous to expect anything new in the action thriller game, even Die Hard (1988) simply played a new angle but was hardly more than a twist on various westerns and anything else where people needed rescued. So as long as the plot doesn’t drift into the maudlin like Shelter, and as long as the action races along, that’s about all you need, as well as an actor who’s a believable action hero.

Plus a director who knows his stuff. Jean-Francois Richet is of that ilk, having directed, most recently, Plane (2023) which follows a similar narrative, as well as superb pictures about criminals, The Emperor of Paris (2018) and especially the two Mesrine (2008) movies. He sticks to the knitting and that’s all you need. There’s a couple of twists to the tale, but that’s standard in today’s thrillers. Annabelle Wallis (Mercy, 2026) kicks ass with the best of them.

Written by Lindsay Michel. In his debut, and J.P. Davis (Plane).

Statham back on form which bodes well for The Beekeeper 2 out in the New Year.

American Gangster (2007) *****

I’ve seen this more times than The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974) put together, so, for me, yeah, this is the greatest gangster picture of all time. There’s always a snobbery involved in talking about your all-time favorite picture. In discussions, I often find that the movie people consider the best is rarely the one they watch the most. While I adore both Godfather pictures on an academic level, they now seem a haul, especially with the running time, overtly grandiose.

American Gangster, on the other hand, is fleet of foot. The dual storylines – Black gangster Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) rising to the top, incorruptible cop Ritchie Roberts (Russell Crowe) heading a team targeting New York’s drug kingpins – neatly intersect until nearly the end.

Director Ridley Scott has thrown off the shackles of sci fi and history – the demands of the grandiose and the visually cinematic and (in the sci fi) the problems of finding a new way to tell the Alien tale when the audience is waiting for the gore. Here he concentrates on narrative that, seemingly at every turn, exposes character. The story is a fascinating one at that. Nobody in law enforcement or at the higher echelons of Government went after Frank Lucas because nobody thought a Black gangster could build an empire to which even the Mafia kowtowed.

Oddly enough, the violence is muted. Scott does away with the need for repeated violence by an opening shot that sets the scene, Lucas setting fire to a snitch. This is more of a story about big business, that entrepreneurial spirit by which America sets so much store. And it’s a story about family. Lucas recruits all his brothers for the enterprise. Roberts is an outcast in the family of cops because he refuses to be corrupted.

But Roberts is no saint. He is accused by wife Laurie (Carla Gugino) of being scrupulously honest on that front only so he can be dishonest in the rest of his life, with his promiscuity and neglect of his son. When Lucas has the entire extended family round the table to celebrate Xmas (or Thanksgiving – there’s turkey involved, that’s all I know) in a mansion, Roberts is reduced to a tuna sandwich in his cramped apartment.

This is a time when gangsters were celebrities, safe in the knowledge that they were untouchable as long as they paid off the cops. Lucas shuns excess, determines not to draw attention to himself, which is why he remains hidden for so long, and it’s only when, to satisfy his wife, he wears an outrageous fur outfit that he comes to the attention of Roberts.

As the tale zips along, in the background we witness the drugs industry at work, the packaging, the distribution, the clashes between rivals, the deaths of junkies (including a cop), and Vietnam, where corrupt soldiers have made possible Lucas’s clever scheme to buy drugs at the source, cutting out the middle man and ensuring the purity of the product.

But Lucas is a corporate hero. He believes in the brand. A brand, he says, is a guarantee of quality, its dissipation the cause of a dispute with mobster Nicky Barnes (Cuba Gooding Jr.). In the corporate drugs world, the Mafia might think it has drawn Lucas into its tentacles, but it’s the other way round.

This all climaxes in the most dangerous manner – cinematically speaking – possible. John Ford owns the doorway, has done since The Searchers (1956). Christopher Nolan has also taken a tilt at that particular cinematic crown in The Odyssey (2026) when the gates of Troy open to reveal the gigantic figure of Agamemnon in black shining armor. Here, the doors opening are those of a church. Lucas steps out to see the street deserted except for the waiting Roberts.

There are other standout scenes in a movie that careers along so fast it scarcely needs them – Roberts dressing a corpse up to look alive to escape a mob, the shock of the cops when Roberts hands in rather than shares out a million bucks, Lucas burning the fur coat in rage, any time corrupt Detective Trupo (Josh Brolin) appears the scene is a standout, Roberts begging corrupt cops for his money back, Lucas interrupting his breakfast to execute a rival in the street, even the meet-cute with Lucas’s future wife Eva (Lymari Nadel) “can you let go of my hand?”

Lucas dresses immaculately but conservatively, Roberts is in jeans but Tupo, in black leather coat, exudes power. There’s very little moralizing, although various people complain about the loss of an accepted order. The drug dealers go down but there’s no mention of imprisonment for the hordes of soldiers and airmen who took money to feed drugs to their own soldiers or ship them to America.

The cast is absolutely terrific, Denzel Washington (The Equalizer 3, 2023) a commanding, cunning, figure, Russell Crowe (Gladiator, 1999) with his shuffling walk, Chiwetel Ejiofor (Backrooms, 2026) and Josh Brolin (Weapons, 2025) as the most arrogant of the corrupt cops. Supporting roles are filled by the likes of John Hawkes (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, 2017) , Carla Gugino (Watchmen, 2009), Cuba Gooding Jr. (Jerry Maguire, 1996), Armand Assante (Blowtorch, 2016), Idris Elba (Heads of State, 2025) and Ruby Dee (A Thousand Words, 2012). Written by Steve Zaillian (The Irishman, 2019) based on an article by Mark Jacobson.

There’s one other stunning element that needs mentioning – the music by Marc Streitenfeld (Prometheus, 2012). This must be the most self-effacing score ever to grace a gangster picture.

If this has been made today, the trailers would be acclaiming the Oscar achievements of the actors – the tally comes to three winners and three nominees. Next year, when this is due a 20^th anni reissue maybe that will be the promotional tag.

I might well be tempted to watch it again tonight.

The Driver (1978) ***

Blasphemy I know but I went to see this back in the day not because of director Walter Hill, certainly not for star Ryan O’Neal, but for the wonderfully edgy Bruce Dern (Smile, 1975). You never knew what Dern would do next. Even his hairstyles tended to be offkey. Without having the choleric demeanor of, say, Trevor Howard, he was never far short of exploding. Although he had a couple of top-billed roles, his position as an out-and-out leading man never took off and he was relegated to second male lead. But having him in your cast could transform a picture, especially if you let him off the lead.

My guess is that Walter Hill was aiming for the monosyllabic essence of a Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen or Charles Bronson in casting the main role. But no matter how often Ryan O’Neal screws up his eyes or issues dialog through a sullen mouth he lacks the edginess his existential character requires, like those French guys Alain Delon or Jean-Paul Belmondo who were kings of edginess.

Instead, we’re stuck with O’Neal, and I don’t entirely blame the actor, he’s not always sappy, look at his work in The Thief Who Came to Dinner (1973). But the director does him no favors by failing to provide him not only with a background but any sense of a contemporary life – no partner, no kids – apart from a fondness for country music. Whatever he’s salting away his hefty earnings as a getaway driver for we never find out. So, unfortunately, bearing in mind O’Neal’s screen presence limitations, what we’re left with is a cipher.

All we know about the unnamed driver (Ryan O’Neal) is that he doesn’t like guns – and that proves to be a bit of a clever red herring. The unnamed detective (Bruce Dern) is much better value. Theoretically, he’s the good guy but back in the day cops had carte blanche to play the bad guy and this one decides to trap the driver by setting up his own bank robbery, planning to enrol the driver.

Into this mix comes “the player” (Isabelle Adjani – an actress who has a definite Gallic edge), a poker player, a kept woman, who happens to catch sight of the driver during a robbery at a small-time casino and then demands payment for not picking him out of a line-up. There is a smattering of burgeoning romance but you wouldn’t trust her not just to be after you for your wallet.

I’ve not mentioned the car chases, of which there are several. I’ve not mentioned them because they are all the same and except for ripping off a Lee Marvin scene from Point Blank (1967) lack the edginess and invention of the famous predecessors Bullitt (1968), The French Connection (1971), Fear Is the Key (1972) and any James Bond picture you care to mention. All the chases take place on the flat and maybe duke into the occasional alley but mostly stick to the main roads where tires can screech and let off sparks. And that’s it really. Once in a while someone has to duck to avoid bullets, but after the first chase, it’s basically repetition. Okay for the petrol-heads but a tad boring for the rest of us.

So back to the clever dick cop. Even by the standards of the rogue cop, the plot point seems imminently ridiculous. The detective is hiring a gang of robbers known to like using their guns to scare off any innocent bystanders. So what are the chances of that going wrong and some poor bank customer or employee being knocked off. Explain that to your employers, Mr. Detective. Trying to catch a getaway guy is not going to wash as the excuse.

Plus, of course, your clever plan relies on being able to get back the stolen dough. In those days, of course, you didn’t have to worry about the PTSD of anyone caught up in a violent robbery or think of compensating a bank for damage to property and some such and since this is Hollywood where all dreams come true, even one as barmy that that hatched by Walter Hill (he’s the screenwriter, too), you can just carry on regardless.

The best part of the picture is the non-vehicle getaway. The driver has to use a fence to get rid of the hot cash and is willing to trade it in at a substantial loss. This involves left luggage, keys, double crossing, the detective chasing down two sets of cash, the player, and a final stand-off.

Talking Pictures TV which has a habit of finding gold in old pictures out of circulation for a long time has this to view for free. I had wanted to check it out to correct my earlier estimation and for the pleasure of seeing Bruce Dern in one of his best roles. But I didn’t end up altering my opinion.

Bruce Dern steals the show. It’s worth comparing what little Isabelle Adjani (The Story of Adele H, 1975) does to what little Ryan O’Neal does. She wins hands down.

Walter Hill would go onto to win a certain regard among critics. But the only pictures of his I like undeservedly are Streets of Fire (1984) with another monosyllabic main character and 48 Hrs (1982) but the latter mainly because Eddie Murphy knocks spots off the monosyllabic sour Nick Nolte.

Worth a watch for all the wrong reasons. Not Walter Hill or car chases, but Bruce Dern and Isabelle Adjani.

By the way, Bruce Dern is a guest at this year’s Edinburgh Film Festival so we might get a showing of Silent Running (1972) or Smile (1975).

Crossplot (1969) ***

Roger Moore – in his first movie in seven years – almost auditioning for James Bond with his lothario instinct, light touch for dialog, a nice side-line in double takes, and enough action to show that even in his early 40s he was still nimble enough. Not in the Charade (1963) or Arabesque (1966) league and over-reliant on the Swinging Sixties and other “Tourist Britain” clichés and a plot that takes far too long to get going, it takes all the actor’s charm to make it watchable.

After one of his staff Warren (Dudley Sutton) switches the photo of a model in his portfolio, ad-man Gary (Roger Moore) finds himself on the trail of Marla (Claudia Lange), a sometime fugitive hiding out on a houseboat. Meet-cute is prompted when she pushes him into the Thames. On leaving he is knocked out and framed on a dope charge and once he manages to get her into the photographic studio Warren attempts to throw her off the roof, the would-be killer himself eliminated by his boss Ruddock (Francis Matthews) who in a marvelous piece of quick-thinking throws his gun to Gary who instinctively catches it, further implicating himself.

After going all round the houses (including a stately home), evading pursuit via an antique car race and a wedding, Gary finally gets to the bottom of why Marla is in such danger – she overheard a conversation between her aunt Joe (Martha Hyer) and Ruddock. Only problem is – she can’t remember it. And it takes even more time for Gary to figure it out, (not realizing, how could he, that the clue is in the title, in fact two clues in a crossword puzzle). You can imagine how it goes from then.

*This poster takes the easy route by trying to sell the picture on the back of “The Saint.”*

On the plus side is mostly Roger Moore. “I come from a long line of hippopotamuses,” isn’t the sort of line you can deliver without some skill. But Moore’s performance lifts what is for the most part a shaggy dog story, and he’s game enough to do all the running and fighting required, even the heavy lifting (of his eyebrows), to keep the story moving. It’s far from as funny as it thinks and not as funny as it needs to be, but there are still some good stabs at humor, a pistol held to Gary’s head discovered to be a toy gun, Gary turning the tables in a shower on Marla, telling the bride that her groom is a bigamist, and a running joke about the Marla being perennially hungry.

The politics barely touches on the conspiracy aspects that Hollywood would have pounced upon and made a better fist of, although the idea that Britain could be undermined by civil strife was not far off the mark for the times. It needed some smarter thinking, though, for that element to work.

*A much better attempt at selling a thriller with scenes from the film,*
*including the toy pistol pointed at Roger Moore’s head.*

The rest of the cast are game enough. Claudie Lang (The Gatling Gun, 1968) is no Sophia Loren or Audrey Hepburn but nobody is pretending she is and she just about gets away with the dumb model approach. Martha Hyer (The Chase, 1966) delivers a glamorous villain and the suave Francis Matthews (Rasputin: The Mad Monk, 1966) her ideal match.

There’s quite a supporting cast: Veronica Carlsen (Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, 1968), Gabrielle Drake (Suburban Wives, 1972), Dave Prowse (Star Wars, 1977), Bernard Lee (You Only Live Twice, 1967), Alexis Tanner (The Ernie Game, 1967), Ursula Howells (BBC’s The Forsyte Saga, 1967) and Dudley Sutton (Rotten to the Core, 1965).

If Alvin Rakoff (The Comedy Man, 1964) is in charge of the material he doesn’t have enough material to work with. He does enough to keep it on course but would have benefitted from a a tighter screenplay from Leigh Vance (The Frightened City, 1961). Both had done better in the past, but it is easy to be seduced by the romantic thriller format, almost a mini-genre in itself, assuming it is easier to pull off than it looks. The likes of Alfred Hitchcock (North by Northwest, 1959) and Stanley Donen (Charade) made it look easy but they had the advantage of big stars in Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn who possessed the ability to make the lightest confection work.