Rent The Criminal (1960)

Gritty - The Criminal review by sb

FILM & REVIEW Aka Criminal - another taut gritty drama from Joseph Losey has Stanley Baker ( the hardest man in British Cinema) as Bannion a career criminal on his final day in prison. He already has another caper lined up so we know it’s won’t be long before here’s back. The job is set up and he romances Suzanne (Saad) but once the job is done and he buries 40 grand in a frozen field he gets betrayed and banged up again. Last time he was Mr Big in prison but this time as various parties want to know where the cash is he has a much tougher time. He agrees to be sprung in return for the location but things don’t go to plan… It’s got a real who’s who of British acting at the time with Magee doing his creepy turn as the sadistic warden who is Bannions nemesis and very effective use of the icy British winter that chills the bones. Baker is as always superb in the lead - a spring of tightly controlled violence that dominates the whole film. Very good indeed - 4/5

Prison drama. - The Criminal review by Steve

Ultra-stylish morality tale which pulls together motifs from prison and heist films into a vehicle for liberal themes typical of Joseph Losey. Particularly on greed and justice. Trauma eyed Stanley Baker is ideal casting as a violent con who leaves stir to set up a racetrack heist. Soon he's back inside, but with every villain in London after the loot.

The gangster lives without trust. He is a loner. There may be portents of the emerging swinging London in his flashy consumerism, but he is emotionally austere. Baker dominates the film. Among the exceptional support cast, Patrick Magee is a standout as a manipulative, autocratic screw. Who isn't quite right in the head.

The prisoners are mostly either mentally ill or of limited intellect. There is no rehabilitation, just perpetual horror. Losey doesn't editorialise, he merely creates a context for his sociopathic antihero. The film is stylistically unorthodox: psychedelic POV shots imply drug use; there's a great Johnny Dankworth's jazz score, and even some nudity.

And Cleo Laine's deep, melancholy Prison Ballad recurs like a chorus. These fashionable details date the film now, but also give it an elegant period mystique. Not everything works. The calypso singer who comments on the action is clunky. But, it puts a black face in the cells. The years have eroded the realism but this still excels as a cold, fatalistic noir.