Crime/Thriller – Page 8 – The Magnificent 60s

Borsalino (1970) ****

You wonder how much the unexpected success of this French gangster picture encouraged Paramount to invest in The Godfather (1972). The studio had gone down the Mafia route with The Brotherhood (1968) but to a significantly muted response. But where that film was heavy on family and drama, Borsalino went wild with charismatic performances and, as important, machine-gun-driven violence. And you couldn’t ignore the success the previous year of the French The Sicilian Clan (1969).

While Borsalino doesn’t go into the weighty issues and family sensibility that elevated The Godfather in the eyes of critics, its starting point owed more to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) with two likeable hoods, even, initially at least, sparring over the same girl. The family element here concentrates on fraternity, brothers in crime, rather than the father-son dynamic that drove The Godfather. And it’s just so much goddam fun.

Francois (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and Roch (Alain Delon) are petty crooks in Marseilles in the early 1930s working their way up to the top, initially just with scams like presenting a longshoreman who can’t speak a word of German as a German regional boxing champion, hijacking the favorite in a horse race, setting up a slot-machine business, disrupting the city’s fish market, until graduating to more serious crime and challenging Marello (Arnoldo Foa) and Poli (Andre Bollet), kingpins of the area’s organized crime. They set fire to an abattoir, establish their own fiefdoms, running legitimate businesses like casinos. But the higher they climb the closer they come to a devastating irony which cannot be ignored. Once they’ve eliminated everyone else, their only competition is with each other, and both realize that, inevitably, one will begin to want to become the undisputed top gangster.

Roch is the more thoughtful of the pair, the one looking ahead, sensing opportunity, the strategist, Francois more likely to indulge his playboy instincts, but both enjoy the high life, mixing with celebrities, politicians and archbishops. There’s plenty collateral damage. Try to steal a bigwig’s girlfriend away and you are virtually condemning her to death.

Unexpectedly, for the genre, it’s huge fun, in part helped along by the genial earworm of a score by Claude Bolling, as evocative of the period as Scott Joplin’s rags were to The Sting (1973). We don’t have to suffer any sanctimonious prig on the sidelines offering commentary or the gangsters making out that they’re better than they are because they don’t indulge in certain types of crime. But the biggest contributory factor is the teaming of Alain Delon (Once a Thief, 1965) and Jean-Paul Belmondo (Is Paris Burning?, 1966), the two biggest French male stars of the decade, the former enjoying substantially more success overseas than the latter.

Remember that Robert Redford was a not star when he made Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid so the pairing of two huge marquee names was not a regular feature anywhere in the world. It was Alain Delon, in his capacity as producer, who snared his rival, ceding top billing to achieve it.

This was the second of nine movies that Delon made with director Jacques Deray and could not have been more different from their previous outing La Piscine/The Swimming Pool (1969), a claustrophobic psychological thriller. Deray had history with Belmondo, too, Crime on a Summer Morning (1965). The characters were a great fit for their screen personas. And the photography, with some sepia tint, is distinctive.

Written by Jean-Claude Carriere (Viva Maria!, 1965), Claude Sautet (Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud, 1995), Jean Cau (Jeff, 1969) and the director, based on the book Bandits a Marseille by Eugene Saccomano.

Buddy movie breakout. Highly enjoyable.

This City Is Ours (2025) *****

Knockout! Just stunning! I’m running out of superlatives for this one, the best crime series since The Wire (2002-2008). For sure, it takes a lead from The Godfather (1972) in that the core concerns family. But in a far more emotional manner than the Coppola epic where apart from a couple of scenes between Michael (Al Pacino) and his father (Marlon Brando) actual male expression of feelings is kept to an absolute minimum as though that might contaminate the pot.

Here, women, both in their relationships with husbands/fiancés, and their own naked ambition are very much to the fore. The new generation of males are vulnerable because of their desire for family, utterly exposed by love for babies and unborn babies, as opposed to old school boss Ronnie Phelan (Sean Bean) who spent little time with his son. And the fear of those on the fringes of being excluded from the “family” or those on the inside being cast out gives the narrative an iron soul.

The nail-biting climax is driven by three incidents involving the most vulnerable and therefore the most loved members of the clan. There’s betrayal, revenge and double-crossing but none of the infidelity or drug/alcohol abuse that was often a hallmark of the genre.

The tale pivots on three events. The first is of the brooding variety. Ronnie has allowed Michael Kavanagh (James Nelson-Joyce), almost an adopted son, to take the lead in crucial negotiations with Spanish drugs kingpin Ricardo (Daniel Cerqueira) much to the annoyance of his son Jamie (Jack McMullen). The second is that, in consequence, Jamie decides to hijack the next shipment. When Ronnie discovers his son is behind the plot, he decides not to follow up, and Michael realizes that blood is indeed thicker than water and that he will be squeezed out of his position in the organization. So he kills Ronnie and assumes command.

Except Jamie doesn’t take too kindly to this notion and, although generally not too bright and certainly way too impulsive for his own good (the Sonny, to keep The Godfather parallel going, of this particular gang), works out that only Michael had the motive to commit the murder which of course Michael strenuously denies. Both convince themselves the only way to take control is to rub the other out.

And then we’d be in standard gangster territory except for the other, emotionally-driven, plotlines. Jamie has a son he absolutely adores. Michael, with an unexpectedly low sperm count for a hardman, is hoping for an IVF baby with his girlfriend Hannah (Diana Onslow), a respectable businesswoman but hiding a very dark secret. Michael’s sidekick Banksy (Mike Noble) is grooming his son in the business. Ronnie’s wife Elaine (Julie Graham) treats Michael like a son and is inclined to take his side against Jamie. Rachel (Laura Aikman), wife of Jamie’s sidekick Bobby (Kevin Harvey), has ambitions way above her station of lowly book-keeper. She finds a way of finessing the fact that she physically controls the organization’s cash – and that it’s Ronnie’s wife whose name is on anything the gang owns – to exploit the divisions in the family as a means of of becoming the de facto “Godmother.”

Meanwhile, Ricardo, for good reason, distrusts Jamie and will only do deals with Michael, for whom he acts as mentor (so, if you like, Michael has two dads) although Jamie plans to sidestep the Spanish connection and go elsewhere for drugs which would have the dual effect of leaving Michael isolated and, with Rachel controlling the purse strings, potentially millions of pounds in debt. And hovering in the wings is a crafty cop, causing problems in every sneaky way possible, and a liability Cheryl (Saoirse Monica-Jackson), stuck with keeping to the code of omerta even though she guesses Ronnie wiped out her husband.

So it’s a game of shifting loyalties, grasping after power, with uber gangsters laid emotionally low by commitments to babies and pregnant wives. There’s none of the posturing of The Godfather, no making excuses for career choice or murderous thugs who draw the line at dealing drugs or women purportedly unaware of what their husbands do for a living.

Directed with occasional elan and pace and a great nose for the cliffhanger. Terrific writing by Stephen Butchard (The Last Kingdom, 2015-2018), both in dialog and twists on character interaction, and with a marvellous sense of narrative. You never know which way it’s going to go.

But most of all bursting with outstanding talent. You won’t see a deader eye this side of Clint Eastwood than James Nelson-Joyce (A Thousand Blows, 2024-2025) in his first leading role, who’s as comfortable exploring his own emotions as planning destruction. Mother hen Julie Graham (Ridley, 2022-2024) could easily turn into Ma Barker. Hannah Onslow (Belgravia: The Next Chapter, 2024) is tormented by her secret. Laura Aikman (Archie, 2023) manipulates and schemes. Virtually the entire cast are seasoned television actors, yet they’ll never have been lucky enough to encounter such character depth before.

Get on to your local streamer/television station and harangue them to buy this from the BBC.

As I said I’ve run out of superlatives.

Mr Majestyk (1974) ****

I interrupt the current program to bring you the hugely under-rated Mr Majestyk, now showing on Amazon Prime.

You read any critical assessment of the 1970s and if they talk about male actors at all it’ll be the “new wave” of Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson, Gene Hackman, Oscar nominees/winners all. There’ll be nary a mention of the actors who kept the box office straight on a consistent basis for most of the decade. Clint Eastwood would come into the equation, but it wouldn’t be for Dirty Harry (1971) or Every Which Way but Loose (1978) but only when he flexed his directorial muscles. Charles Bronson never harbored any ideas of picking up a megaphone so he wouldn’t even have that saving grace.

Yet Eastwood and Bronson saved Hollywood before the big blockbuster like Jaws (1975) or Star Wars (1977) took off and for one specific reason. They attracted a global audience. When foreign receipts started to matter more than ever, these two delivered. And while the critically-adored actors dithered over choices and could scarcely be guaranteed to put out a picture a year, Eastwood and Bronson were dependable, occasionally ramping up output to three a year (1971 and 1973 for Eastwood, 1972, 1974 and 1976 for Bronson). They were old-school reliable performers. .

Mr Majestyk has been somewhat overshadowed because it appeared just before what some ill-informed observers deemed to be Bronson’s breakout picture, Death Wish (1974), and because it was helmed by the under-rated Richard Fleischer (The Boston Strangler, 1968) who never seemed to generate critical traction.

In fact, it’s a cracker – a pair of stunning car chases, full-on blow-away street battle, and the actor is one of his best roles. If anyone could play a farmer convincingly it’s Bronson, who looks as if he knows exactly what it’s like to put in a mucky day’s work (he was a miner). Vince Majestyk (Charles Bronson), in the watermelon line, falls foul of small-time organized crime in the shape of one of the most hapless hoods you’ll come across, Bobby Kopas (Paul Koslo). When Majestyk doesn’t take too kindly to Kopas trying to muscle in on the employment market, the farmer ends up in jail.

During a routine transportation, gangsters try to hijack Mob hitman Frank Renda (Al Lettieri) but despite going in all guns blazing the racketeers haven’t counted on Majestyk, who steals the bus, sees of the pursuing cops and robbers and hides out in a shack in the hills. He trades the mobster for the cancellation of charges against him by Det Lt McAllen (Frank Maxwell). But he’s duped by Renda’s backgammon-playing fashionable moll Wiley (Lee Purcell). On the loose, Renda is determined to get his revenge. The cops are happy to use Majestyk as bait.

Mexican Nancy (Linda Christal), a crop picker and union organizer, also enters the frame, and despite Majestyk, having recognized imminent danger, trying to stifle burgeoning romance, she keeps coming back. She’s a straightforward gal. “You want to go to bed with me, why don’t you just ask?”

But bait becomes bait-and-switch and soon it’s the gangsters who are on a wild goose chase, car passengers driven off the road during a wild chase over dusty mountainous country, others picked off by rifle until it comes down to a showdown at an isolated house.

While Majestyk has the muscle to give Renda an occasional slapping, he’s also got the sucker punch, duping the hoodlum time and again.

One of the elements that distinguishes this is that, apart from Renda, all the characters, good or bad, male or female, are soft spoken. Even Lt McAllen isn’t always chewing someone out.

Although the car chases have been compared to Bullitt (1968) and The French Connection (1971) they have much more in common with Fear Is the Key (1972) where we are miles away from slick city roads. Plenty opportunity for vehicles to sail through the air. Nancy proves something of find behind the wheel, and Vince pretty game in the back of the truck being bounced six ways to Sunday by her driving.

Outside the action, several excellent scenes – the gangsters shooting up the watermelon crop, headlights ominous in the dark, a crop-picker being smashed by a car, Kopas being put in his place by Renda. Not only is the romance in a low register, but Bronson is in a low key, resigned to what he cannot change, but taking charge with blistering speed when he can.

This was a deliberate change of pace in terms of characterization from Bronson following the more action-oriented Chato’s Land (1972), The Mechanic (1972) and The Stone Killer (1973). There’s none of the usual brooding menace. He’s a farmer, not a killer.

Despite a long stretch in The High Chaparral (1967-1971), this was the first movie in six years for Argentinian Linda Cristal who’s effective rather than a scene-stealer which the cool Lee Purcell (Kid Blue, 1973) definitely is in non-showy fashion. By contrast Al Lettieri (The Godfather, 1972) eats the scenery, which is his job, as he turns from cat into mouse.

More than ably directed by Richard Fleischer from an original screenplay by Elmore Leonard (The Big Bounce, 1969).

A must see.

The Untouchables (1987) *****

The greatest crime picture ever made, outside of The Godfather Parts I and II (1972/1974). A sledgehammer of a narrative that moves like an express train, only slowing down for a number of bravura sequences. Riddled with fabulous lines, built on great performances, and seeded early on with subsidiary characters who will later play significant roles. In any analysis it reads like a greatest hits.

The bloodied finger of Al Capone (Robert DeNiro) holding court to fawning journalists; the little girl’s plaintive cry of “Mister” before she’s blown to kingdom come; the love note included in the lunch of Elliot Ness (Kevin Costner); “poor butterfly” as the first raid goes wrong; the introduction of Malone (Sean Connery) “here endeth the lesson”; the trading of racist insults with recruit George Stone (Andy Garcia); Capone bludgeoning an associate to death with a baseball bat; in the safety of a church, Malone explaining “the Chicago way”; the first big cinematic sequence – the shootout at the border with meek accountant Oscar Wallace (Charles Martin Smith) making his bones and sneaking a drink of beer; Malone “killing” the dead man; “touchables” smeared in blood in the lift; Malone’s fistfight with crooked boss Dorsett (Richard Bradford); Malone’s murder by hitman Frank Nitti (Billy Drago); the second, and greater, bravura sequence – the shootout on the steps of the railway station; Ness pushing Nitti off the rooftop; the disbelieving Capone sentenced.

And those are just the broad strokes. Peppered throughout is the issue of Capone’s tax evasion, the crime that brings him down, with virtually all Wallace’s contribution being reading from documents relating to this. Nitti appears in the second scene, leaving the bomb that will blow the little girl to kingdom come, and again at Ness’s house.

And this is so old-fashioned that not only are we rooting for the good guys but none of those involved has marital or alcohol problems. Cops like Malone may be disillusioned but they don’t take their disenchantment out on the bottle. Anyone who talks about marriage agrees it is a good thing.

Character introduction doesn’t go down the iconic route of The Magnificent Seven (1960) or The Dirty Dozen (1967). Chicago’s Finest sneer at Ness behind his back. Another director would have been tempted into a bolder entrance for Malone. But he’s a loser, still a beat cop in middle age, and on the late shift at that. He doesn’t just know his job, detects Ness is packing a gun, but he’s capable of a sardonic quip or two. Who’d claim to be working for the humiliated Treasure Dept is they weren’t? And he’s not so stand-up as he appears, playing with a key chain like worry beads, keeps a sawn-off shotgun in his record player.

And that’s before we go into the dialog. Screenwriter David Mamet (Glengarry Glen Ross, 1992), revered as America’s greatest living playwright, turns on the style. “You can get further with a kind word and a gun than with just a kind word”; “They pull a knife, you pull a gun”; “do you know what a blood oath is?”; “team!”; “brings a knife to a gun fight”; “all right, enough of this running shit;” “can’t you talk with a gun in your mouth?” “his name wasn’t in the ledger,” “did he sound anything like that?”

And that’s before we get to the score by Ennio Morricone, his best in terms of the consistency of theme (rather than just one standout tune) since Once Upon a Time in the West (1969). Or the rocking title sequence.

Turned Kevin Costner (Horizon, An American Saga – Chapter 1, 2024) into a star, a position, with dips here and there, he’s maintained for half a century. Andy Garcia (Black Rain, 1989), too, though for a shorter duration. Not everyone was impressed by Robert DeNiro’s (The Alto Knights, 2025) florid interpretation, but I wasn’t one of them. Brought Sean Connery (The Russia House, 1990) long overdue recognition for his acting, though it’s worth remembering that the Oscar voters who gave him a standing ovation could have handed him the gong a good time before for any number of excellent portrayals.

Director Brian DePalam (Carrie, 1977) was an Oscar shut-out. And when I look at the films that took precedence in the Best Film nominations, there’s only one, Moonstruck, that I’d seek out.

This is a thunderous achievement, and I can’t wait for 2027 when Paramount surely will bring it back to the big screen for a 40^th anniversary celebration.

Unmissable.

The Gauntlet (1977) ****

Clint Eastwood the dumb schmuck. Never thought I’d be writing that. But our hero has parked his Dirty Harry persona and channelled much of his inner James Stewart or Tom Hanks, the upright fella who may be a bit of a jerk but is a decent guy underneath.

Our patsy, Phoenix, Arizona, detective Ben Shockley (Clint Eastwood), unshaven drunken bum, is dumb enough to imagine he’s been selected for a special mission because he’s the kind of cop who gets the job done, rather than because he’s the one most likely to fail. He’s sent off to Las Vegas to collect a witness for a trial. No big deal. Two-bit witness, two-bit trial. As soon becomes par for the course, people are apt to make fun of him, in this case a Las Vegas cop turning him away for asking for a guy by the name of Gus Mally. Guffaws all round till the cop takes pity on Shockley and informs him the witness is a woman (Sondra Locke), a feisty sex worker, who spends pretty much the whole of the movie making fun of him and every other sonova.

Shockley’s kinda disturbed to see that someone has made a book on Mally reaching Phoenix, the opening odds of 50-1 soon lengthening to 100-1. But he’s a trusting sort of fella (translated as dumb schmuck) so he thinks it’s a joke but everywhere he goes he gets ambushed and it takes a helluva long time – and only with Gus’s constant nudging – to realize that every time he phones back his position to his boss Commissioner Blakelock (William Prince) there’s awful consequence.

The firepower at everyone’s disposal – both Mob hoods and the cops – is so fearful that cars and houses are destroyed in a ferocious hail of bullets. The only time Shockley comes into his own, cop-style, is when he hustles some Hell’s Angels down and steals a motorbike. But guess what, the bad guys are still not just one step ahead, but in a different class altogether when it comes to pursuit, calling upon a helicopter armed with a sharpshooter.

Shockley even quails when another cop, co-opted into giving them a ride, starts making creepy sexual remarks to Gus, not realizing she can more than take care of herself as if she’s been dealing with hecklers all her life. Gus is quite a character. When she’s not screaming her head off to gain sympathy from Shockley, she’s trying to seduce him, or taking the piss out of him or just plain mocking his ineptitude and trusting personality.

She’s got better weapons at her disposal than he’ll ever have, a tongue that could strip paint, and a body she’s not frightened to use to get herself out of a sticky situation. Or in one particular instance, to save Shockley’s hide. It’s only after this that Shockley gives her any respect. And they come to more than a mutual understanding, as she begins to show genuine feelings for her escort, and we end up with the kind of relationship that’s always going to be raggedy around the edges because, as you’ve guessed, he’s one for keeping his emotions in check and makes do with a catchphrase, “Nag, nag, nag.”

Just what her purpose is in said trial you couldn’t care less about, she’s just a Maguffin to bring opposites together, soften her hard edges and toughen up his unsuspicious nature. There’s a heck of climax as they ride into town in an armor-plated bus and straight into the same kind of fusillade as they previously endured until between them they manage to nail the corrupt bad guys.

This is a hell of a ride, great concept, terrific believable characters, she’s sharp and sassy, and he’s toned down the arrogance. There’s genuine charisma between Clint Eastwood (Coogan’s Bluff, 1968) and Sondra Locke (The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, 1968), helped by the fact they were already in an adulterous relationship, and in between falling into difficult situations it’s a blast watching them getting out of them.

Despite the virtual non-stop action, it’s a change of pace for Eastwood, a shift away from the screen persona on which his commercial attraction was built, and in some senses, even counting in the violence, it owes more to the dynamics of the screwball comedy than anything else, especially when the more practical woman is called upon to save the out-of-his-depth man. Written by Michael Butler and Dennis Shryack (they teamed up again for Pale Rider, 1985).

Ably directed by Eastwood, a belter.

The Accountant 2 (2025) **** – Seen at the Cinema

Rebirth of the semi-feel-good action movie. Take note, Steven Soderbergh et al, boring us to death, this is how to make an intelligent adult thriller. Of course, first of all, you’d have to recruit a writer as savvy as Bill Duque (creator of the Ozark series, 2017-2022) who can make characters come alive through the inconsequential, almost the inheritor of the Quentin Tarantino mantle for the memorably off-beat, who can also build on tetchy pairings – it would be a buddy movie if the main characters weren’t brothers – and throw in a just wonderful dance sequence that will become a classic. And that’s forgetting the setting up of a school where autistic children, with a different kind of a particular set of skills, can thrive.

But we’ve also got the super-smart deduction that’s the hallmark of the superior type of detection thriller, the working through a morass of details, the jigsaw that doesn’t fit, until our hero, having waited patiently for lesser minds to become flustered, steps in and shows it as clear as day.

So we start off with mystery and keep going with it for quite a long time, right down to the climactic pay-off involving the whistling of “Pop Goes the Weasel.” Former top Government official now part-time private eye King (J.K Simmonds) is bumped off while trying to locate a family from El Salvador. Before he dies King scribbles on his wrist “Find the Accountant” sending Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), the chief of an obscure treasury department, off on a wild goose chase to find Christian Woolf (Ben Affleck) who solves part of the problem thanks in part to a code-breaking computer-hacking backroom team.

Woolf calls in estranged brother Braxton (Jon Bernthal), a top-notch hitman who lives out of a suitcase, and whenever the plot slows down this pair are at it with the bitching, settling old scores, creating new reasons for discontent. Soon they are tracking down Anais (Daniella Pineda), Braxton’s equal in the assassination department, at the same time as some thugs who want to kill her.

There’s a good few alleys to go down, some of them blind, while the brothers, to the despair of the devoutly law-abiding Medina, employ illegal tactics to uncover information from drug dealers, money-launderers, sex traffickers and pimps. But part of the joy of the film is that their tactics are always unusual, you never know what’s coming next.

Balancing this out is the bitching. Braxton is sore never to get a call and at having had to look after in his early days a brother who couldn’t conceive of showing gratitude. Christian constantly identifies flaws in his brother’s character, even to the point of determining that if he ever wanted a pet, he’d be better off with a cat rather than a dog.

There’s plenty action, fisticuffs and serious weaponry, and sometimes the bad guys get what’s coming to them and sometimes it’s the good guys. Both brothers are seeking emotional commitment without the foggiest idea how to achieve it, Christian making a breakthrough when after using his obsessive study of detail is rewarded by getting a girl’s name at a line dance, Braxton pure coincidence that they pick up a stray cat.

But this is mightily finely thought-out. We are introduced to Christian as he manages to game a dating club, ending up with all the candidates lining up at his table. For Braxton, we think at the very least he’s working himself up, Taxi Driver style, to face up to a killing or maybe at least an estranged wife until we discover that he, too, is trying to game the system, in this case desperate to buy a puppy ahead of schedule.

Braxton has two other distinctively-written scenes. In the first, we think he has lined up a sex worker, and he maybe has a reputation for violent sex, and that he’s getting a mite ornery, not realizing that she, being German, doesn’t quite catch what he’s saying. Eventually, her fear is explained as Braxton leaves and walks past the people he’s killed. The cat I mentioned, they’re sharing transport with a young boy and Braxton starts moaning that the child is getting to hold the cat more than him. Your heart bleeds. In case you were worried, the brothers do reconcile, all mysteries are solved and there’s a cracking final shoot-out.

Ben Affleck (Air, 2023) benefits from being withdrawn rather than showy. Jon Bernthal (The Amateur, 2025) is all scene-stealing at the outset but soon calms down. Cynthia Addai-Robinson (People We Hate at the Wedding, 2022) has a more cliché role, and having a thing about chairs doesn’t do much to build her character. Daniella Padina (Plane, 2023) is as kick-ass as they come. Wish J.K. Simmons (Red One, 2024) got more roles.

Directed with style and restraint by Gavin O’Connor (The Way Back, 2020).

Saw this in a double bill with Sinners – that’s what going to the movies is all about.

Terrific.

Jigsaw (1962) ***

Unusual crime picture even for the period. Most of these British pictures focused on the crime or an innocent caught up in nefarious activity, not just a straightforward police procedural before the term was even invented. In fact, the plodder was more likely to be a private eye or gifted amateur like Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple.

The title doesn’t refer to mystery but the painstaking element of putting all the pieces together and most likely still not being able to complete the puzzle – as occurs here until the very last scene and even then by pure accident. There are no sudden sparks of insight and the detectives don’t have the luxury of gathering all the suspects in a room Agatha Christie style. In fact for most of the movie not only can they not settle on a suspect they’re struggling to identify the victim. And this being when forensics didn’t exist except for fingerprints, there’s nothing even from that area to help.

At first Detective Inspector Fred Fellowes (Jack Warner) and Det Sgt Jim Wilks (Ronald Lewis) are investigating a break-in at a real estate office. Nothing’s been taken except leases, which suggests someone who either wants to get out of a lease or who doesn’t want their handwriting identified. After an exceptionally long haul it proves to be the latter. A lead takes them to a house in Brighton where they find the corpse of a woman with the initials JS.

I doubt if any police pictures of the period went into as much detail in following clues as this. Hunting for the killer the police interview taxi drivers, delivery men, garage mechanics, grocery clerks, truck drivers working construction, hardware and vacuum cleaner salesmen. Searching for the victim they check out beauty parlors, factories, pawnbrokers, airlines and hairdressers. The only clues are a gray car with a bent wing mirror – but even when they can identify the make it turns out there are thousands in the country – the contents of a vacuum, perfume smells on a pillow, particles of bone found in a furnace. Finally, with an old-fashioned trick Fellowes finds a name – Jean Sherman (Yolande Donlan) – and an address.

But Jean Sherman isn’t dead, though it transpires that she had a one-night stand in the murder house with a man she identifies as Campbell. But they can’t find Campbell either. They do alight on dodgy vacuum cleaner salesman Clyde Burchard (Michael Goodliffe), who has a previous conviction for indecency. Despite being identified by the delivery driver, it turns out he just had sex with the dead woman and nothing else.

Eventually, Fellowes finds Ray Tenby (John Barron) who is identified by Jean. He had picked her up after killing the other woman, Joan (Moira Redmond), and had sex with her in the next room to the corpse. But they can’t prove Tenby didn’t act in self-defense, and it’s only by that piece of unexpected luck that they can pin it on him.

Although most of the dialog focuses on the investigation there are some clever remarks. A journalist pressing a beat cop for information is told that leaving his car running unattended is an offence. Jean’s hardline father (John Le Mesurier) initially decries his daughter’s behaviour as immoral to the point of almost disowning her until, discovering she is dead, he bursts into tears.

With the amount of mileage the investigation covers, this could be done within the usual hour-and-a-bit of the standard British B-movie so it stretches a proper feature length. As written and directed by Val Guest (Assignment K, 1968), it’s not particularly stylistic, nor does it stretch tension too far, but it is still engrossing in the accumulation of detail.

Peeping Tom (1960) *****

You could hardly get a more prescient movie, almost in the 1984 class in depicting the future. Not dystopian, but the contemporary obsession with filming every inch of a child’s life. You do wonder what kind of reaction this will generate further down the line when Generation ZZZ realizes how little privacy it has been afforded.

Director Michael Powell – thrice Oscar-nominated and at the time after such hits as The Red Shoes (1948) regarded as on a par with the likes of David Lean (Oscar-winner of Bridge on the River Kwai, 1957) and Carol Reed (The Third Man, 1949) – lost his shirt and his reputation on this, and it took decades before Peeping Tom was accepted as nothing short of a masterpiece.

The narrative cleverly links up several strands. With a portable movie camera landlord Mark (Carl Boehm) obsessively records everything in the vicinity, including posing as a journalist to join a police murder investigation and rigging his apartments to check out the goings-on. He’s also, it transpires, a serial killer, the terror registered on corpses’ faces not aligning with the knife wounds that killed them. Into his world comes a young woman Helen (Anna Massey) who is attracted to this intriguing shy figure. Her mother (Maxine Audley) is less accepting.

In the background are the visual memories of Mark’s childhood, perhaps explaining his current compulsions, the films his psychiatrist father made of how his son reacted to fear, most of which episodes are triggered by the father. And the whole movie takes place in another world of make-believe, that of movie making, where directors are driven to distraction by incompetence and Mark can play on ambition by luring wannabe actress Vivian (Moira Shearer) into making an after-hours movie with him, which ends in her death. Even Helen, a children’s writer, has taken as her subject a magic camera.

Although Mark is interviewed by the police and, in a very modern trope, films himself being interviewed, he is not considered a major suspect. He screens his snuff movies for the blind mother. Murder is perceived as an almost erotic act, correlating with the very modern idea of violence as pornography. Clearly, it’s the progenitor of the slasher film. And Helen would be viewed as the first “final girl.”

But it’s also beautifully made, the color palette, use of light and shadow, the mise en scene, all speak to a master at work, and the delving into the mind of a killer is shown, unusually, in visual rather than verbal terms in the dry tones of a psychiatrist such as parlayed by Alfred Hitchcock at the end of Psycho the same year. Quite why only Hitchcock’s film was acclaimed, given they cover similar personality defects, you would have to go ask the critics.

And the big reveal – why the victims died in such fright – would surely be noted by today’s moviegoer as inspired genius. Carl films his victims dying and he has attached a mirror above the camera so the victims can see themselves die in horrific fashion.

Audience and critical revulsion was as possibly triggered by the scenes of the young Carl being tortured by his father, such aspects of society treated in far more discreet fashion, if at all, in those times. The voyeuristic aspects of the murders are only sexual on the surface, and really harbor back to the tormented childhood where a young boy grows up believing all acts of violence are not only permissible but must be recorded. Written by Leo Marks (Sebastian, 1968).

The raw power must be seen to be believed. Martin Scorsese has promoted many movies he believes under-rated but in this one he gets it right.

Night after Night after Night (1969) ***

British giallo sets tough London cop Bill Rowan (Gilbert Wynne) hunting a Jack-the-Ripper type serial killer who has slaughtered his wife (Linda Marlowe). Chief suspect is leering cocky jack-the-lad Pete (Donald Sumpter) of the wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am school of seduction. In an era when pornography and “perversion” were beginning to shake off the shackles – and strippers, prostitutes, voyeurs and transvestites condemned as evils to be stamped out – this skirts the boundaries between sexploitation and heavy moralizing.

Chief among those embarking on a moral crusade is hypocritical puritan Judge Lomax (Jack May) who spurns his attractive wife (Justine Lord) while indulging in cross-dressing. Needless to say, his clerk, ostensibly another upholder of the moral fabric, is a porn addict. As the body count grows, Pete manages to needle Rowan sufficiently for the cop to consider any nefarious means to put him behind bars.

Knives flash in the dark, the killer wears black leather, victims writhe on the ground as they are slashed to pieces, and coupled with the unusually high nudity quotient it is surprising that this picture passed the British censor. The movie never drags and there is enough incidental sleaze to keep the viewer interested. As a historical document, it details the point at which the country hovered between reined-in respectability and full-on sexual freedom.

Operating here under the pseudonym Lewis J. Force, Canadian director Lindsay Shonteff (The Million Eyes of Sumuru, 1967) conjures up a darker vision of a London so often presented in glorious tourist tones with nastiness seeping into every corner of society. Veteran Jack May (A Twist of Sand, 1968) captures well the double life of a decent man undone by what is perceived to be indecency and his later scenes are quite moving. Donald Sumpter (The Black Panther, 1977) is excellent as the taunting petty criminal while Gilbert Wynne makes a decent debut as a leading man. In small roles are Justine Lord (Deadlier than the Male, 1967) and Linda Marlowe (Big Zapper,1973 – directed by Shonteff). Written by Dail Ambler (Beat Girl/Wild for Kicks, 1960).

Jack the Ripper was such an ingrained element of British culture that any movie featuring a similar villain gave audiences the creeps. British television cops were beginning to move out of the shadow of Dixon of Dock Green and into the new age of The Sweeney and while giallo did not catch on among home-grown filmmakers there was considerably more focus on hardened criminals such as Get Carter (1971) and Villain (1971).

A Working Man (2025) **** – Seen at the Cinema

Audiences have been so let down by high-profile big-budget disasters like Snow White, Captain America, The Joker Folie a Deux, and critical clunkers like Anora, is it any wonder that they queue up to see a movie with a star who generally delivers. Sure, this is a meat-and-potatoes picture and it might well spell a new trend and consign high concept to the trash basket. That’s not to say our star Jason Statham hasn’t had his share of high concept – he doesn’t jump the shark but is inclined to punch it on the nose in the various The Meg iterations and his usual beating up bad guys routine was nearly snarled up in high concept politics in last year’s The Beekeeper.

I saw this at a matinee performance on Monday and the place was packed and as I left I overheard two ladies saying how much they had enjoyed it. Critics have been a bit sniffy about this because the plot is old hat. Who cares? All plots are old hat and those that aren’t are too new hat for audiences to enjoy.

There’s some attempt to repurpose the lonely hero, generally estranged from his family and down on his luck. Here Levon, an ex- (British) soldier, is suffering from PTSD, kept away from his only child by a wealth father-in-law who bankrolls teams of lawyers to ensure visitation rights are kept to a minimum. And Levon blames himself – as does the father-in-law – for being away fighting for Queen and Country when he should have been at home helping his depressed wife and stopping her committing suicide.

It’s piling it on a bit thick though to have him living in his automobile when as a boss on a construction site he must be earning enough to rent even the lowliest bug-ridden apartment, which he eventually does, since “no fixed abode” doesn’t look good on legal papers.

Anyways, we’re soon introduced to his special set of skills when he sets about some gangsters picking on one of his workers. You think the narrative’s going to involve some backlash from the guys he’s beaten up. But it takes a different route. The daughter Jenny (Arianna Rivas) of his boss Joe (Michael Pena) is kidnapped to order by a human trafficking operation headed up by Dimi (Maximilian Osinski), disgraced son of Russian Mafia head honcho Wolo (Jason Flemyng).

Posing as a drug dealer, after carrying out a ton of clever reconnaissance, Levon infiltrates the drugs outfit at a very low level and then works his way up, knocking off members of Wolo’s clan and various affiliates. Meanwhile, Jenny proves herself adept at improvising, in the violence arena, you understand – when your hands and feet are tied, remember you’ve still got your teeth.

This is the kind of film where you’re going to lose count of the number of violent deaths but all you’re interested in is Levon cutting through the wheat and chaff and getting to the top so he can save the girl. Luckily, it doesn’t try to build up a mythical gangster backstory in the manner of John Wick, but there are some interesting scenes where Wolo, initially introduced as sitting at the high table, is put in his place by someone higher up the rankings, and a great scene just at the end where Wolo, by now bereft of his sons, is told by the big boss to accept his losses and get on with the job of selling drugs and leave Levon alone, at which point he lets out the kind of wail that, had he been a bereft hero, would have had him in contention for an Oscar.

There’s no romance either to get in the way so it’s very strictly meat-and-potatoes. In an era when MCU and DC are flailing, Hollywood could do worse than resorting to a more basic kind of hero. Let’s call him, since all superheroes need titles, Workingman Man.

Directed with a zest for pace and tension by David Ayer (The Beekeeper). Interesting to see Sylvester Stallone’s name attached as co-screenwriter and a producer, so I wonder if this had been originally touted as starring him.

Does what it says on the tin.