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Underrated British Crime/Gangster Films
I had a natter with mates last night about British crime/gangster films. We were throwing titles around when one said he was bored with hearing same titles over and over.
Films like The Long Good Friday. M. Get Carter. Layer Cake. The Lavender Hill Mob. Brighton Rock. Sexy Beast. The Ladykillers. Gangster No.1. Mona Lisa. The Krays. The Crying Game. All Hitchcock films. The Italian Job. Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels.
He wants a list of lesser known or forgotten British crime/gangster films that deserve more attention. I can only think of seven:
He Who Rides a Tiger
Eastern Promises
The Criminal (Stanley Baker)
The Wrong Arm of the Law
The Croupier
Bronson
The first or second Simon Templar film (saw it on iPlayer a couple of months ago. It's surprising cynical, flippant and darkly funny. Templar doesn't hide the fact that he can torture or kill for money.)
Any more suggestions?
Films like The Long Good Friday. M. Get Carter. Layer Cake. The Lavender Hill Mob. Brighton Rock. Sexy Beast. The Ladykillers. Gangster No.1. Mona Lisa. The Krays. The Crying Game. All Hitchcock films. The Italian Job. Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels.
He wants a list of lesser known or forgotten British crime/gangster films that deserve more attention. I can only think of seven:
He Who Rides a Tiger
Eastern Promises
The Criminal (Stanley Baker)
The Wrong Arm of the Law
The Croupier
Bronson
The first or second Simon Templar film (saw it on iPlayer a couple of months ago. It's surprising cynical, flippant and darkly funny. Templar doesn't hide the fact that he can torture or kill for money.)
Any more suggestions?
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Sleazy, violent and funny- just bloody wonderful really.
Famously, The Blue Lamp (1950) the film that spawned Dixon of Dock Green. A truly great film.
Later, Jigsaw (1962) is certainly worth a view . Both tightly atmospheric with lovely, evocative location work.
I was going to mention Villain too. Richard Burton chews the scenery as a gay gangster. As above, some bestow greatness upon it, though I thought it hypnotically awful. But certainly one you have to see for yourself.
The Good Die Young (1954) - Four men from different backgrounds attempt to rob a payroll delivery. With Stanley Baker (I'm sensing a theme in this thread...) as a washed up boxer.
Tread Softly Stranger (1958) - A man, on the run from some crooks he owes money to, goes back to his old home town and gets caught up in a plan to rob the wages of the local steel mill. Diana Dors is absolutely GORGEOUS in this.
Still can't understand how he never got the Bond part.:(
http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt1071880/
Going Off Big Time
http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0241492/
Essex Boys
http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0191996/
A great British hard man actor who died way too soon.
Couldn't agree more- one of favorites.
Just 48 when he died,
Todd stars as a struggling cosmetics salesman whose pride and joy is a new card (Ford Anglia), essential for him to do his job.
The car is stolen by Adam Faiths tearaway, who works for Peters Sellers, a sort of Mr Big running a car-theft ring.
Todd is incredibly tenacious when it comes to retrieving his car, an ordinary working man driven to desperation in order to get back something he has worked years to own.
The revelation in the film is Peter Sellers, playing against type as a truly nasty character...there is a fight in a garage involving chains and all sorts of implements that is very violent for the time.
And Wilfred Lawson as the sly old foreman
Love this film.
Plus a Man from Uncle and The Prisoner
Good friends with a lot of real London hard men, as I found out last night.
Thread spurred me to look at Baker related stuff, found an old Guardian article singing his praises and lamenting his loss or reputation.
Hell Drivers, that film gets mentions all over the place.
Defies all logic why it's loved so much, Charlie Chaplin driving scenes still make me giggle but I'll still watch it repeatedly.
I wonder what the viewing figures would be if a terrestrial channel actually advertised they were showing it.
Down Terrace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_Terrace
The Bank Job
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bank_Job
And of course, Ill Manors.
the boys:
the thought of dudley sutton in the boys stayed with me in every thing else he ever did.
they are american made not british.
My favourites are:
Hell Drivers
Hell Is a City
The Frightened City.
Stanley Baker starred in the first two. He was a great loss to the British film industry when he died so young.
On the Hell is a City tip, just found this in the Guardian, location pictures, which some might find interesting.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/gallery/2012/oct/08/hell-is-a-city-in-pictures
Good film, though perhaps disappointing for those expecting a conventional thriller.
The reason Owen never got Bond was because he never put himself forward for it in the first place.
perfect friday?
not violent, but slick for its time
The Vicious Circle
Bunny Lake Is Missing
Performance
Town On Trial
The Man Upstairs