The Criminal (1960, aka The Concrete Jungle) 16th September 2019

[Aclea]

This hasn't got much attention or interest - well, virtually any attention, really - but this is one of the must-have releases of the year for me:

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-C...lu-ray/249324/

Synopsis: Ex-con Johnny (Stanley Baker) used his time in prison wisely – to plan the biggest robbery of his career. The robbery goes smoothly and Johnny goes to bury the money in a field until the heat is off, as agreed with friend and racketeer Mike Carter (Sam Wanamaker) and the rest of the gang.

In a moment of weakness, Johnny pockets five hundred odd pounds from the haul. Coupled with a tip-off from his ex-girlfriend (Jill Bennett) this proves to be his undoing and Johnny is soon back in prison. The rest of the gang try in vain to get the location of the money out of him without success until Mike hits upon the idea of a break-out using Johnny's new love Suzanne (Margit Saad) as bait.

Special Features and Technical Specs:

NEWLY REMASTERED
Audio Commentary with film historian Kat Ellinger
Stills gallery
Optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature

The Criminal/The Concrete Jungle is, for my money at least, one of Joseph Losey’s two best films (the other being King and Country), but it never really garnered the kind of success or reputation it deserved, possibly because it had the misfortune to open on the same day as Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, which completely overshadowed it. Billed as ‘the toughest film ever made in Britain,’ even 59 years on it’s still truly vicious stuff. Indeed, in the entire cast of characters that populate Alun Owen’s excellent and unsentimental screenplay – irredeemable crooks, vicious prison warders, prison governors who don’t really want to know, amoral molls and assorted perverts and thugs – the only two people in the entire film who aren’t totally corrupt are Laurence Naismith’s arresting officer (who is still not above letting on about his informants) and the piano tuner who appears in one brief scene. The plot is a simple enough variation on Touchez Pas au Grisbi, with Stanley Baker’s con pulling off a big job and immediately being ratted out by one of his partners who wants a bigger share, but the stark execution and background is what carries it. Certainly its vision of the British prison system as a Hellish melting pot of refuse of all persuasions - Irish, Australian, Italians, West Indians, the mentally disturbed – where the guards don’t just turn a blind eye to vicious beatings but even facilitate them is a kick in the groin to the more sedate cop movies of the day.

It’s also full of memorable little moments, from the prison weasel spreading the news of an informant’s return inbetween lines of Knick Knack Paddywhack to Kenneth J. Warren’s inability to say anything without incorporating the word ‘loike.’ Robert Krasker’s black and white cinematography has more bite to it than most of its contemporaries, from the hard stark edges of the prison scenes to the bleak half-snowscape of the haunting final shots (even pulling off a striking moment of stylised lighting as the script gets inside one lowlife's head), while Johnny Dankworth’s score makes great use of Cleo Laine’s mournful prison balled (“All my loving, all my joy/Came from loving a thieving boy”). The supporting cast is impressive, offering a virtual who’s who of perfectly cast 60s British character actors*, including many faces that would later memorably turn up among the ranks in Baker’s Zulu). Unlike the wave of British gangster flicks that littered the straight-to-video shelves post-Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, this feels like the real thing rather than a bunch of nicely brought up middle class kids playing dress-up.

For some curious reason Anchor Bay’s otherwise excellent DVD transfer omitted the end credits, played over a melancholy shot of prisoners walking in circles in a stark and wintery exercise yard. Hopefully StudioCanal will restore that. Shame the SC disc is so light on extras (the Anchor Bay release included the UK trailer).

* How's this for a supporting cast of familiar faces - Sam Wanamaker, Grégoire Aslan, Jill Bennett, Rupert Davies, Laurence Naismith, John Van Eyssen, Derek Francis, Patrick Magee, Kenneth Cope, Patrick Wymark, Kenneth J. Warren, Noel Willman, Paul Stassino, Tom Bell, Neil McCarthy, Nigel Green, Murray Melvin, Edward Judd, Roy Dotrice, Sydney Bromley