Convivial crime caper from within the prison is possibly the seed for Porridge. Vivian Cox & Len Heath (with additions by Alan Hackney) write Peter Sellars, David Lodge and Bernard Cribbins needing to escape to pull off a fairly neatly staged diamond heist (it's a great alibi!), with the aid of Wilfred Hyde-White, Irene Handl (having a bit more of a role than usual) and Liz Fraser. Meanwhile their nemesis is the seal-barking Lionel Jeffries; Maurice Denham is the marrow-obsessed Governor. Lodge also has a decent role - the cast alone is enough reason for watching. Good fun, but when did censorship finally change to allow a crime to go unpunished (The Italian Job's ending is equivocal)?
Ebullient music from Ken Jones, shot by Geoffrey Faithfull (massive list of largely unknown films since 1913). And it's clearly in something wider than 4x3.
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