Poor old Lenny (Michael Ripper). All he craves is a quiet life, selling coffee, which nobody ever drinks and ham sandwiches, without the ham. His world is turned upside down when ex-con and deportee George Mikell, no, MIKELL returns illegally, aboard a merchant ship, upon which a lame brained effort to cover the vessel's original name has been made.
Lock expert Ripper is coerced into breaking into Mikell's wife's flat, followed by a safe cracking job, by way of retribution on corrupt club owner, Eddie Byrne, for non-payment of Mikell's cut from a previous job. The prolonged robbery scene, intended no doubt to be nail-bitingly suspenseful is just ponderous and tedious. Even the decent jazz score is ruined by Ripper's relentless drilling!
The police, led by William Hartnell with his crack team, conduct their investigations with Borisesque behind the curve efficiency.
The script is pretty much what you would expect from a twelve year old, invited to write a gangster story. Hamstrung by stilted, wooden performances and a lack of any real substance or subplot.
Focusing on the positives: The delightful, underrated Betty McDowall salvages some artistic integrity as Mikell's mistreated wife, who has found a new love. In addition, as the action moves to the Arsenal stadium on match day, there is fleeting library footage of a game. The solitary goal, however, when it arrives, a scrappy over-the-line affair, draws merely shoulder shrugging indifference from the crowd. Oh, come ON! At least entertain us with a 30 yard netbusting screamer, accompanied by an erupting, uproarious ecstatic stadium. The prospect of Mikell attempting his getaway whilst being unceremoniously jostled amongst 20,000 surging, delirious, rattle wielding home fans would have made essential viewing. What a missed opportunity! Maybe the Gunners were always resigned to playing at the Highbury Library.
Billed by the T.V. channel as a 'lost' film, one is compelled to ask: Was it really lost, or did somebody discreetly put it out with the rubbish? One of relatively few films made by Grand National Pictures, it's hard to imagine many punters racing to back this nag. However, at 71 minutes, this passingly noirish potboiler is fairly brisk in making its point. In the event of the patience shredding mechanism kicking in, then simply fast forward to enjoy the absurdly abrupt ending.
