Friday 17 February 2023

The Criminal (1960 Joseph Losey)

Tough crime thriller anticipates Performance in portrayal of professional violence and the criminal high life, mixed with a realistic study of prison society. The writer's Alun Owen.

Stanley Baker's great and totally believable as the tough criminal (loved the scene where two heavies intent on roughing him up in cell end up severely battered). With Sam Wanamaker (double-crossing associate), Gregoire Aslan, Margit Saad, Jill Bennett, Rupert Davies, Laurence Naismith, the idiosyncratic Patrick Magee, John Van Eyssen, Noel Willman, Kenneth Warren, Kenneth Cope, Patrick Wymark, Paul Stassino, Tom Bell, Murray Melvin.

Interesting credits: Photographer Robert Krasker, editor Reginald Mills, composer John Dankworth (the first of their associations).



Great bandstand scene:




Has a particularly bleak ending, somewhat reminiscent of Fargo.

"Go away!"

Losey had a most interesting career, beginning in the US in theatre (working with Brecht amongst others), then with films like The Boy With Green Hair and the great film noir The Prowler, after which he was blacklisted and moved to England. His association with Dirk Bogarde goes as far back as the 1954 The Sleeping Tiger; they also made together The Servant, King and Country, Modesty Blaise, Accident; later films became increasingly pretentious.


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