Unlimitedia Sick Product of a Sick System

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Cheryl A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Goingbegging The supreme accolade for a 'B' film is that so many cinemas should choose to show it as a main feature, and it gets translated into at least one foreign language - the case with this production.You can't help noticing how tiny the budget must have been. Just a handful of modest room-sets, no location work, no special effects, no big-name stars (even Derren Nesbitt was probably not bankable as early as this). Yet its smallness is its strength. We are able to focus on an average English town living the second-division life. A group of three gangsters, somewhat out of their depth, try to exploit the quiet holiday period to pull-off their one and only robbery before going straight. According to plan, one of them bluffs his way into a bank, wearing postman's uniform, before letting-in the other two, and they tie up the manager and his secretary who are alone in the building. But they hadn't thought about the office cleaners who would naturally come on duty at a quiet time like this, so the gang has no choice but to lock their two captives in the strongroom that they've just burgled.Driving off, they realize that the unfortunate couple will soon run out of air, so they have to devise a plan to enable the cops to get hold of the strongroom keys in time to rescue them. Otherwise the robbery charge they were risking could turn into a murder charge (which could still have meant the gallows in 1962).This is where the suspense begins, with alternating scenes of the manager and secretary trying to break out of their prison, and the gang trying to engineer their release without giving themselves up. There is great ingenuity in the plotting of this drama, far above the standard 'B'-film level. It is truly involving to watch a mortuary attendant announcing that they'll have to wait for the keys until he gets the coroner's report, while the two captives are only minutes from suffocating. And the same when the manager's friends briefly wonder why such a punctual man should have missed their lunch-date, but eventually decide it's not worth investigating. It is these little sub-plots that drive the story to such effect. But the surprise-ending is too masterly to be disclosed here.Derren Nesbitt, a dead ringer for Richard Burton, both in looks and in the blend of charm and menace, is brilliantly cast as the dominant gang-member, persuading a nervous young Keith Faulkner not to cut-and-run and just leave the captives to their fate. There is no leading lady in the full sense, but Ann Lynn as the secretary makes the most of her few opportunities. (She was just divorcing Antony Newley at the time, over a little local difficulty called Joan Collins.) The script is generally convincing, except for the gossip between the two young charladies, which comes a little too close to a pastiche of downmarket girlie-chat (though the topical references to consumer advertising are significant), and the mortuary attendant is rather too plodding as the official who insists on following regulations.

Leofwine_draca STRONGROOM is a simple and straightforward thriller that manages to pack oodles of tension into its brief running time. It was helmed by B-movie maestro Vernon Sewell who had a long career throughout the 1940s and beyond making B-movie thrillers before ending his career in schlock horror with the likes of CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ALTER and BURKE & HARE.This tale is a simple one about the usual bank robber antiheroes who rob a bank and lock a couple of employees in a vault. However, the twists of the plot mean that they quickly realise that the employees will die if they don't rescue them, and this against-the-clock tale unfolds alongside a typical police procedural investigation.STRONGROOM benefits from a compelling performance from Derren Nesbitt as the chief robber; he brings a ruthless, sweaty streak to the role and makes this quite compulsive watching. And there's always plenty of suspense to be had from a "running out of air" storyline such as this; the ending is particularly strong.

jamesraeburn2003 Scrap metal merchants, Griff (Derren Nesbitt), Len (Keith Faulkner) and Alec (William Morgan Sheppard) decide to turn to crime for a one off job. They pull a £30,000 raid on a bank on Easter Saturday and lock the manager, Mr Spencer (Colin Gordon) and his secretary, Ms Taylor (Ann Lynn) in the vault. They flee but Griff realises that the pair will not be discovered until Tuesday and as the vault is air tight, they will have suffocated by then. Initially, Len and Alec are uncaring but Griff persuades them that if they do not inform the police they will have a double murder on their hands. They decide that Alec will take Mr Spencer's car out of the area, inform the police anonymously and leave the vault keys in the phone box. Meanwhile, Griff and Len will see to it that the money is put in a safe place. However, in an unfortunate twist of fate, Alec becomes involved in a car crash and dies. Griff and Len are now faced with a dilemma. They go to the mortuary to collect Alec's personal effects, which include the vault keys, but the attendant refuses to break official procedures and will not hand them over without the proper authority. Griff and Len realise that they will have to break back into the bank and cut a hole in the vault door using their cutting equipment from the yard and feed in oxygen through a tube connected to a cannister. But all the while time is running out - fast!Strongroom was produced as a low budget b-picture but when it opened in the West End, it got such good press that it was elevated to a-feature status. It is not hard to see why as it has enough good qualities to stand on its own. The screenplay by Richard Harris offers several opportunities for suspense and Vernon Sewell's direction certainly rises to the occasion ensuring that the audience is kept on the edge of their seats. Tense moments include the scene in which Griff and Len have broken back into the bank and are busy cutting into the vault door only to be interrupted by two cops. They are seized and about to be dragged off to jail and Griff pleads with them explaining the circumstances. But are his efforts going to be in vain? Is it already too late? The picture does have some weak moments, the scenes between Colin Gordon and Ann Lynn trapped in the safe border on the absurd at times like when Gordon hacks away into the concrete floor of the vault with a pair of scissors and a handle from a cheque perforating machine to expose a sewer pipe, which he hopes to break open to let some air in and he manages it! I found that just a little far fetched but on the whole, Strongroom is better than your average British b-pic especially in terms of the suspense aspect and performances are good all round. Happily the film is now available on DVD.

Michael A trio of crooks plan "one last job" that results in them unintentionally sealing a bank manager and a humble secretary in a time-locked vault, with sweaty cross-cutting moral-dilemma results.Unfortunately the production as a whole is less hermetically sealed, resulting in a distinct lack of consistent tension. Unaided by listless direction from Sewell, the intrigue comes in the intense playing of Gordon and Lynn as the incarcerated couple who start off with nothing in common, but come to wring a credible denouement out of a genuinely unpredictable situation.This is achieved through admirably unhysterical script and dialogue, in a way only the British could ever have achieved in second-feature quality material.