Reminding me of "Rififi", the film starts with a young couple pasting signs on their train compartment window "Reserved - Newlyweds", when their body language tells that they are so obviously not! They change their clothes and within a short time are in the middle of a seamless, well rehearsed robbery aboard "The Flying Scot" - all told with no speech!! It seems too good to be true and it is. It is just a dream of cocky adrenalin filled Ronny (Lee Patterson) as he strives to sell his plan to his sceptical gang members. Phil (Alan Gifford) thinks it's do-able so along with waitress Jackie (sultry Kay Callard) they set about putting it into action.
Of course things go wrong, Ronny is too hot headed, instead of the easy screws in his dream, the money is behind a panel with immovable rivets so drills and saws have to be utilised, which makes them behind schedule so they miss their drop off point and now have to take the money off the train themselves. Phil becomes ill, the older woman in his carriage being a nurse realises it is a perforated ulcer and he later admits to Jackie that he postponed surgery that same week because this chance of easy money was too good to turn down.
Main player Ronny is unlikable which is a plot twist - Jackie has a lot of sympathy for Phil but like a lot of British "little" movies it is the quirkiness of the other players, any of which you are thinking will propel the narrative, that makes the film memorable. Firstly Phil's train companion has her head stuck in a crime magazine then announces "I've been watching you" - Phil stiffens but she reveals she is a nurse and is worried about his health. Another couple are a wife with an alcoholic husband, she is taking him to a clinic to "dry out" - concerned but keeping him supplied with liquor so he won't cause a disturbance on the train. A family, mother, father and bratty child cause grief to their fellow passengers with their different views on child rearing - mother wants the little boy to explore and be adventurous, father just itching to use a rolled up newspaper. Funniest part - a passenger who is on the receiving end of the unrestrained brat, is doing a cross-word, thinks long and hard about a word, sees the little boy and very clearly spells out B-A-S-T-A-R-D!!
I thought the little boy was going to "crack the case", he has already made himself troublesome around the train and has told all and sundry that he has seen a man with a gun, but like the little boy in "The Fallen Idol" he has told one lie too many and this is the chance his father is waiting for. As it is the instigator is a passing guard who puts justice in motion in a quietly unobtrusive British way.
Director Compton Bennett had a major hit with "The Seventh Veil" (1945) but by the mid 1950s he was ensconced in programmers. Shot in just 3 weeks on a budget of 18,000 pounds - shows what a imaginative and proficient director can do when given a chance.
Highly Recommended.
Of course things go wrong, Ronny is too hot headed, instead of the easy screws in his dream, the money is behind a panel with immovable rivets so drills and saws have to be utilised, which makes them behind schedule so they miss their drop off point and now have to take the money off the train themselves. Phil becomes ill, the older woman in his carriage being a nurse realises it is a perforated ulcer and he later admits to Jackie that he postponed surgery that same week because this chance of easy money was too good to turn down.
Main player Ronny is unlikable which is a plot twist - Jackie has a lot of sympathy for Phil but like a lot of British "little" movies it is the quirkiness of the other players, any of which you are thinking will propel the narrative, that makes the film memorable. Firstly Phil's train companion has her head stuck in a crime magazine then announces "I've been watching you" - Phil stiffens but she reveals she is a nurse and is worried about his health. Another couple are a wife with an alcoholic husband, she is taking him to a clinic to "dry out" - concerned but keeping him supplied with liquor so he won't cause a disturbance on the train. A family, mother, father and bratty child cause grief to their fellow passengers with their different views on child rearing - mother wants the little boy to explore and be adventurous, father just itching to use a rolled up newspaper. Funniest part - a passenger who is on the receiving end of the unrestrained brat, is doing a cross-word, thinks long and hard about a word, sees the little boy and very clearly spells out B-A-S-T-A-R-D!!
I thought the little boy was going to "crack the case", he has already made himself troublesome around the train and has told all and sundry that he has seen a man with a gun, but like the little boy in "The Fallen Idol" he has told one lie too many and this is the chance his father is waiting for. As it is the instigator is a passing guard who puts justice in motion in a quietly unobtrusive British way.
Director Compton Bennett had a major hit with "The Seventh Veil" (1945) but by the mid 1950s he was ensconced in programmers. Shot in just 3 weeks on a budget of 18,000 pounds - shows what a imaginative and proficient director can do when given a chance.
Highly Recommended.