Too Many Crooks (1959 Mario Zampi)

Predictable, crude, sexist, unbelievable, silly, with one of those 'boing!' illustrated scores - quite a lot of fun, in other words. For example, after the hearse crash they leave it there, and in the next scene end up in their destination in another one which they've acquired somewhere... That's the writer not bothering to think the scene through, and at the same time saying 'Who cares?'

Terry Thomas manages to outwit dumb gang of crooks headed by George Cole, and comprising Sid James and Bernard Bresslaw, Joe Melia and Vera Day, until he meets his comeuppance from spurned wife Brenda de Banzie. In this respect the plot - derived from a story by French feminist writer Christiane Rochefort, and Jean Nery, seems seminal - the husband refusing to pay the ransom for the wife turns up in Elmore Leonard's book 'The Switch' (1978), which became Life of Crime (2013) and is also the basis for Ruthless People (1986). (Though the review of the latter reminds me that film is based on a 1910 O. Henry story, and thus I don't know what I'm talking about - doubtless not for the first time.)

With Delphi Lawrence, John le Mesurier, Nicholas Parsons, Sydney Tafler, Terry Scott. Shot by Stan Pavey.