IT CAME FROM THE BOTTOM SHELF!

Few movie genres are as reliable and enjoyable as the heist film.  There is something elementally cinematic about watching a team of professionals assemble, plan out a crime, rehearse particular elements, encounter setbacks, pull the job, and either manage to get away or get caught.  It’s formulaic, but it works almost every time.

The 1967 film, Robbery, is a particularly British example of the genre.  Loosely based on the real 1963 heist of 2.6 million pounds from a Glasgow-to-London mail train, the 1967 film was directed by Peter Yates (Bullitt, The Friends of Eddie Coyle) in a procedural, fly-on-the-wall, documentary style.  The story involves two actual robberies.  The first job, which includes an elaborate car chase, is simply performed to finance the second, larger crime.  It is at this point that Paul Clifton (actor/producer Stanley Baker) enters the picture, as the mastermind behind the mail train job.  In the course of preparing for the theft, Clifton and his team (played by character actors including Barry Foster and William Marlowe) have to negotiate with members of the local mob, stage a prison break to retrieve an essential player (Frank Finlay), lose another teammate due to an arrest, deal with the erratic timing of the frequently late trains, and avoid the dogged investigations of Police Inspector James Langdon (George Booth) who suspects that something is brewing.  Can Clifton manage all the moving parts and get away with the loot?  I’m not telling.

While the single-word title is about as generic as they come, Robbery adds some unusual ingredients into the standard heist recipe.  For one thing, the real location shooting in 1960s London and the English countryside adds an air of authenticity to the proceedings.  It’s also refreshing to watch a crime film where the thieves refuse to use guns (even though it could be argued that the lead pipe approach is just as brutal).  All of the crimes depicted in the film are credible, including the surprisingly simple prison break, and they are played out more-or-less in real time.  Finally, the dry, straightforward approach to the direction enhances the action, especially in the excellent car chase near the beginning of the picture.

Almost everything works in this tight little thriller.  However, I did have a couple of quibbles.  First, Joanna Pettet (who was a comic standout in the 1967 Casino Royale) is completely wasted in the role of Clifton’s wife.  Her character is uninvolved in the robbery, and her scenes (which add up to less than 10 minutes of screen time) feel tacked onto the rest of the film.  There is just not enough of her character within the movie in order to care about the strain that her husband’s illegal pursuits place on the marriage.  As it is, it feels as if Pettet was cynically added to the film simply to include a pretty face in the trailer.

My other issue with the picture is that I often found Johnny Keating’s bombastic jazz score to be at odds with the documentary style of the storytelling.  When the main theme reaches its crescendo, it tends to overpower the action on screen, rather than complimenting it.  The music would have been a better fit with one of Gerry Anderson’s “Supermarionation” TV shows than with a reality-based heist film.

Ultimately, those are minor complaints.  When Robbery focuses on the mechanics of the train heist, the dynamics between members of the crew, and the “cat and mouse” byplay with the police, the story is extremely engaging.  Overall, Robbery is a crackerjack little crime film, which should appeal to most fans of the genre.

UK/C-110m./Dir: Peter Yates/Wr: Edward Boyd, Peter Yates, and George Markstein (based on a treatment by Gerald Wilson)/Cast: Stanley Baker, Joanna Pettet, James Booth, Frank Finlay, Barry Foster, William Marlowe, Clinton Greyn, George Sewell

For Fans of: If you like the stoic criminals and procedural crimes depicted in the French neo-noir films of Jean-Pierre Melville (Bob le Flambuer, Le Samourai, Le Cercle Rouge), you will likely find Robbery to be up your alley.

Video: Kino Lorber Studio Classics will premiere Robbery on U.S. Blu-ray on May 21st.  The image is free of debris and scratches, and the color palette appears to be accurate.  Overall, it is a fine presentation of the film, but it is a tad softer than most Blu-rays of films of this vintage.  While, it is certainly sharper than DVD quality, there is a lack of film grain.  The original mono audio supports the dialogue, sound effects, and Johnny Keating’s bombastic score very effectively.   In addition, the disc includes:

• A very informative audio commentary by film critic Nick Pinkerton
• The theatrical trailer for Robbery, as well as original trailers for the Kino Lorber releases of The High Commissioner, Street People, Midas Run, and Loophole.
• Optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature.

Streaming: At the time this review was written, Robbery was availably through kanopy, the library streaming service.  However, if your library does not include kanopy with your library card (and unfortunately, mine does not), the film is unavailable for purchase or rental in digital form.

More to Explore: There are numerous heist films to choose from, but I couldn’t help but think of The Great Train Robbery (1978), the fictionalized version of a 1855 gold heist.  Peter Yates also revisited the genre with the 1972 film version of Donald Westlake’s comic crime novel The Hot Rock.

Trivia: When writer Alan Trustman was writing the screenplay for Bullitt (1968), he saw a theatrical screening of Robbery, and he suggested that Steve McQueen and the other producers check it out.  Steve McQueen was so impressed by the car chase in Robbery that he insisted on hiring Peter Yates to direct Bullitt.

For More Info: To find out about the real heist that inspired Robbery (1967), read The Great Train Robbery: Crime of the Century: The Definitive Account by Nick Russell-Pavier and Stewart Richards.