CAST:
1961
Directed by John Lemont
Written by Leigh Vance and John Lamont
Music by Norrie Paramour
Herbert Lom – Waldo Zhernikov
John Gregson – Detective Inspector Sayers
Sean Connery – Paddy Damion
Alfred Marks – Harry Foulcher
Yvonne Romain – Anya
Olive McFarland – Sadie
David Davies- Alf Peters
Kenneth Griffith – Wally
Bruce Seton – Assistant Commissioner of Police
The 1960s Retrospective Series
I hadn’t thought about this one in years, and if I did would only have recalled the title song as played by The Shadows, (UK #3, 1961). It’s interesting because it’s a gangster picture that was much harder-hitting then the normal British P.C. Plod movie, and considered controversial at the time. Film noir crime was an American or French preserve. We bought the Telegraph on Saturday and Simon Heffer reviewed the Blu-ray reissue as a way of seeing a film long unavailable otherwise. We checked … Amazon Prime, £3.49. Simon Heffer notes its brutality and violence, though given his book on English (Simply English) that might have meant someone split an infinitive, or ended a sentence with a preposition.
In fact, Heffer persuaded us to watch it, in a first rate review, which included:
It is a film from which none of the characters emerges particularly well, the criminals are thugs, sadists and brutes, the police, fighting a losing battle, are worn down by cynicism, and the staff and clientele of the nightclubs, pubs and restaurants where the action takes place are just rather seedy, venal and pathetic: this is not a section of society of which anyone should feel proud … It is also an exceptionally entertaining film with a surprisingly good script.
Simon Heffer, Hinterland, Daily Telegraph, Saturday 15 May 2021.
It’s about protection rackets, or “insurance” as people in that trade called them. Yes, they existed. I worked in a pub one summer in the late 60s. A burly man (with no neck) arrived every Friday at 6 p.m. as we opened and had a pleasant drink with me, and always bought me one too. He seemed an affable man, though clearly extremely tough. He mentioned that the HATE on his knuckles had been put on “inside.” At 6.30 every week the manager came downstairs, and they retired to the office. After a few weeks, I had to tell him the manager had gone out and wouldn’t be in till much later that evening. ‘Oh, dear. Oh, dear,’ he said, ‘Tell him I’m sorry. Very very sorry.’ Three hours later a fight broke out and smashed much of the furniture. First and last fight we had there. Then in 1970, working with a band. They were playing a club that had recently opened in South London. Twenty minutes into the set about ten blokes rushed in and started firing ball bearings from catapults through the windows, and smashing stuff. They left and the police came. The owner declined to say anything … and declined to pay for the band too as the evening was ended, until the police inspector quietly suggested that failing to pay people might be the heart of his problems.
As you will see in the film, there was the overt direct threat, then there was “the fight breaking out.” Do they still exist? Well, just two years ago we arrived at an Italian restaurant in London. Nearly empty at 5.30. Just two thuggish blokes at a table with no food, but pints of beer each. (It was a restaurant, not a bar, and only opened at 5.30.) They were discussing football in loud voices, peppered with F-words and many C-words (Fair enough, they were talking about Chelsea). After ten minutes a man emerged from the back. They went in the kitchen, came out two minutes later, shook hands and departed. Say no more.
It is most famous as one of Sean Connery’s last roles before James Bond. Professional Scotsman Connery was noted for his inability to do accents, so that when he did a Western, it had to be written in (or just accepted) that the character was Scottish. In this he plays a burglar, Paddy Damian, from Dublin. Variety summed up the casting:
Comparative newcomer, rugged Sean Connery makes a distinct impression as an Irish crook, with an eye for the ladies. Connery combines toughness, charm and Irish blarney.
Variety 31 December 1960
Irish blarney? No! His accent is just odd. It is unusual in NOT being Scots for a change, but it’s not RP English nor Irish either. It’s a case where any sensible director would stop after the first take and say, ‘OK, Sean can’t do it … change Paddy Damian to Jock McWhatever and Dublin to Aberdeen.’ Variety had a point, he did look tough, but smoothly so, and towered over his adoring female co-stars. I’d guess that this was his audition piece for 007, practising his technique on a nicely foreign-accented enigmatic French-White Russian character as his co-star.
The script propels the story well, but poor John Gregson gets some very stiff moralising lines at the end. Some of the cockney rhyming slang is beyond me, and doesn’t fall easily from the actors’ mouths, as in He was caso for this brass. I knew brass meant prostitute (from brass nail = tail according to the internet, but I thought it was the Jacobean stale, not tail), but did not know caso meant mad. Given British film censorship, brass was a safer option that prostitute. Herbert Lom’s character is called Walter Zhernikov. 1961 was the era when showbiz loved Polari, the secret gay language of London. The love of cockney slang and Polari does make me wonder if the scriptwriters were having a smile about Zhernikov v Jerkitoff. Paddy’s surname is ‘Damian’ which derives from conquer or subdue. Alfred Marks character is called Foulcher, a real name, but it sounds like ‘filtcher.’ To filtch is to steal. John Gregson’s detective is ‘Sayers’ and he pontificates at length … a ‘sayer.’ Kenneth Griffith’s disabled cat burglar is called Wally. He got disabled falling during a burglary. What a wally! So they thought about the names.
THE PLOT (spoilers inevitable)
Gangsters fall out over a protection racket. Reasonably terse racketeer melodrama rather surprisingly set in London.
Halliwell’s Film Guide
We start off with a protection gang roughing up a bar. Zhernikov (Herbert Lom),is a wealthy accountant whose flat is decorated with armour and weapons (an important plot point at the end). It’s Lom’s trademark suave, sophisticated swinger with a “foreign” connection.
He is asked for assistance by night club owner Harry Foulcher (Alfred Marks) who has a large suitcase of pound notes that he needs to launder. Zhernikov offers to handle it for 20%, but guesses correctly it comes from protection. Marks is very good, with the thin moustache doing a large part of the job for him.
Zhernikov’s girlfriend, Anya (Yvonne Romain), is a wannabe night club singer. She’s French-Russian, and he uses his influence with Harry to get her an audition for the sleazy club. Like “exotic” Soho clubs in other 60s films, it has a turbaned doorman outside and dancers in exotic Salome costumes inside. This area looks just like Shepperton’s “Soho street corner” set that was used in countless films. They just changed the shop name boards.
Zhernikov has the idea of uniting all the bigger protection gangs into a syndicate with defined territories to avoid conflicts in future. Harry sets up a meeting of the six gangs and they agree to join. Only gym owner Alf Peters (David Davies) is reluctant, but finally agrees.
Some of the heavies are a tad too violent, and they come up with the idea of recruiting Paddy (Sean Connery) to front the operation. Paddy was a cat burglar who shared a cell in “The Ville” (Pentonville prison)with Alf Peters and Wally (Derek Griffiths). Paddy feels responsible for Wally who can’t shin up a drainpipe any more having broken his hips.
We see Paddy putting on the pressure. This involves an Italian restaurant (they should have been used to it), fights breaking out and then grenades being rolled through the door.
Paddy also makes a play for Anya. He was already going out with Sadie (Olive McFarland), the nightclub’s other singer. He switches his affections, but Sadie remains loyal (but tearful)
Zhernikov comes up with a better idea, of running the protection racket on a large building company which he knows is in debt with swingeing weekly completion penalties. The syndicate discuss it, and Alf feels they’ve moved out of their league and decides to leave.
Harry and Paddy visit Alf at the martial arts gym, where Harry shoots Alf dead. Paddy hadn’t realized this was going to happen and vows revenge. Detective Inspector Sayers decides there has been a step too far.
Sayers: The criminal mind? It’s the dark side of the moon, laddie.
Did this inspire a famous album, we ask?
Something has to be done. As his boss, the Assistant Commissioner (Bruce Seton), says:
Assistant Commissioner: A gun was used in daylight, not more than a mile from Piccadilly Circus!
OK, all of Soho fits that geographical description. They decide to turn Anya by threatening to revoke her work permit unless she grasses on Paddy. She agrees. A typically foreign thing to do!.
A sweet touch. They are all sitting in the police car, waiting to trail Harry Foulcher, who has been summoned to see Zhernikov. As they start the engine (I believe that Jaguar Mk IX was a permanent prop at Shepperton studios), all three plain clothes policemen put their trilby hats on. A bit of etiquette I was unfamiliar with. Do not drive bare headed.
I won’t spoil the actual finale. But Alfred Marks deserved top billing …
MUSIC
Norrie Paramor was adept at juggling his roles as A&R boss for EMI’s Columbia label and getting credits on films and B-sides of singles. He wrote the Frightened City. I don’t think The Shadows version is the version we hear in the film. He was their producer at Columbia.
His lyrics for the night club singers include these immortal lines:
The moon in June
And love in bloom
THE 60s REVISITED REVIEWS …
The Six Five Special (1958)
A Taste of Honey (1961)
The Frightened City (1961)
The Young Ones (1962
Some People (1962)
Play It Cool (1962)
Summer Holiday (1963)
Sparrows Can’t Sing (1963)
The Small World of Sammy Lee (1963)
Tom Jones (1963)
The Fast Lady (1963)
What A Crazy World (1963)
Live It Up! (1963)
Just For You (1964)
The Chalk Garden (1964)
The Carpetbaggers (1964)
Wonderful Life (1964)
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1965)
Gonks Go Beat (1965)
The Party’s Over (1965)
Cat Ballou (1965)
The Ipcress File (1965)
Darling (1965)
The Knack (1965)
Catch Us If You Can (1965)
Help! (1965)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Ten Little Indians (1965)
Morgan – A Suitable Case For Treatment (1966)
Alfie (1966)
Harper (aka The Moving Target) 1966
The Chase (1966)
The Trap (1966)
Georgy Girl (1966)
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Nevada Smith (1966)
Modesty Blaise (1966)
The Family Way (1967)
Privilege (1967)
Blow-up (1967)
Accident (1967)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
I’ll Never Forget What’s ‘Is Name (1967)
How I Won The War (1967)
Far From The Madding Crowd (1967)
Poor Cow (1967)
Custer of The West (1967)
Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush (1968)
The Magus (1968)
If …. (1968)
Girl On A Motorcycle (1968)
The Bofors Gun (1968)
The Devil Rides Out (aka The Devil’s Bride) (1968)
Work Is A Four Letter Word (1968)
The Party (1968)
Petulia (1968)
Barbarella (1968)The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
Bullitt (1968)Deadfall (1968)
The Swimmer (1968)
Theorem (Teorema) (1968)
Medium Cool (1969)
The Magic Christian (1969)
The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970)
Little Fauss and Big Halsy (1970)
Take A Girl Like You (1970)
Performance (1970)
Oh, Lucky Man! (1973)
Peter Viney's Blog 
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