A lot of disparaging remarks in other reviews prompted me to give a more positive slant on it.Yes i know that the prison break is highly dubious.How did they manage to scale a 10 foot wall from the inside,and there is no barbed wire on top.Also the prison is conveniently close to a dance hall so that the lags can nip in on the run to have a quick waltz with one of the women standing around.By the way since the break occurs on a midweek afternoon how come 2 young factory workers are dolled up to the nines instead of slaving away at the workbench?However once the passion of David Kiernan and a young Carol white break loose nothing can stop them not the crooks or the law.Don't expect a great deal and you wont be disappointed.
7 Reviews
An engaging and unpretentiously ambitious b-pic crime drama.
jamesraeburn20036 March 2018
Warning: Spoilers
A gang of thieves lead by Ma Wallis (Avice Landone) and her eldest son Eddie (Peter Reynolds) agree to break into Barringtons auction house and steal a priceless collection of jewelery for Martinetti. However, things are complicated when Eddie's kid brother Ron (David Gregory) is sentenced to six months in prison for taking and driving away a van to rob the London Industrial Bank. They get succeed in getting Ron and his confederate Wally over the wall, but things take another twist when another inmate, Len Rogerson (David Kernan), escapes with him. He claims he was framed for somebody else's crime and his teenage girlfriend Carol Marshall (Carol White) is pregnant with his child. In addition, the pair want to get married but Carol's parents object as they "don't want (their) daughter getting tied up with no jailbird and that's that!" When Barringtons puts back the sale of the jewelery collection by another week, Ma and Eddie arrange for the escapees to hide in a private nursing home run by Dr Cambus (Geoffrey Hibbert). Cambus is known to the Wallis family since they discovered that he was a phony and not qualified for the job he does making it easy to blackmail him into hiding Ron, Wally and Len. However, they are in danger of being given away by Len who keeps trying to escape to see Carol. He sends out a message to her via the elderly porter Jonah and she comes to the nursing home putting both her life and Len's in great danger. Carol is kidnapped and Len locked in his room after the gang go to carry out the robbery, but will the Wallis's plan finally come unstuck?
A slightly sharper British b-pic from the oft-maligned Butcher's Film Service who in recent years have enjoyed something of a renaissance. In the 1990's many of their low budget programmers (including this one) were regularly shown on late night television (ITV) and in the 2010's they got a home video release courtesy of the splendid Renown Pictures. There was even a commemorative Butcher's booklet!
The film is remembered mainly because it features an early role for Carol White (Cathy Come Home) who tragically died very young as a pregnant teenager who wants to marry a jailbird against her socially conservative parents wishes. This subplot was no doubt intended to spice up the film a little at the time, but whereas it may have seemed a little controversial back then it doesn't today.
The film's most attractive element is the mother figure Ma Wallis (Landone) who is the brains behind the crooks activities no matter how hard her eldest son Eddie (Reynolds) tries to make out he is. Director Francis Searle, a prolific maker of British second features, stages some effective and amusing little scenes such as Ma visiting Ron in prison and she deliberately puts on this harmless little old lady routine in front of the prison warder: "Can't I send him in a little cake?", she asks. "Sorry, its against the regulations" replies the warder with very little patience dismissing her as a daft old woman. Then, right under his nose and he cannot twig what's going on, she and Ron start planning his escape in faintly coded speech. Next, Searle cuts to the Wallis's parlour behind their little newsagents shop that acts as a front for their criminal activities where she is laying out a full scale diagram of the prison layout and directs Eddie and the boys with great authority exactly how they are going to pull off Ron's breakout.
There isn't much in the way of suspense or dramatic tension and the plain and uninspired way the actual jailbreak is shown betrays the picture's shoestring budget. Yet the cast give straightforward honest performances as working class villians and that helps matters. One of the gang, Slim, who got taken to court himself and witnessed Ron getting his sentence says "I was (there) for not paying any maintenance to my wife for the past five years. What, does she think I'm made of money or something?" The fact that these little dramas was set in modest and realistic working class settings featuring ordinary people with ordinary problems and aspirations was what gave them a little edge and made them likeable to watch. In addition, the cramped little sitting rooms of terraced houses and tiny cornershops from which the action unfolds are beautifully lit by cinematographer Ken Hodges giving them a fine sense of place and period.
All in all, despite the limitations of its tight budgeting, Francis Searle succeeds in fashioning an engaging and unpretentiously ambitious little crime drama that is worth taking the trouble to see.
A slightly sharper British b-pic from the oft-maligned Butcher's Film Service who in recent years have enjoyed something of a renaissance. In the 1990's many of their low budget programmers (including this one) were regularly shown on late night television (ITV) and in the 2010's they got a home video release courtesy of the splendid Renown Pictures. There was even a commemorative Butcher's booklet!
The film is remembered mainly because it features an early role for Carol White (Cathy Come Home) who tragically died very young as a pregnant teenager who wants to marry a jailbird against her socially conservative parents wishes. This subplot was no doubt intended to spice up the film a little at the time, but whereas it may have seemed a little controversial back then it doesn't today.
The film's most attractive element is the mother figure Ma Wallis (Landone) who is the brains behind the crooks activities no matter how hard her eldest son Eddie (Reynolds) tries to make out he is. Director Francis Searle, a prolific maker of British second features, stages some effective and amusing little scenes such as Ma visiting Ron in prison and she deliberately puts on this harmless little old lady routine in front of the prison warder: "Can't I send him in a little cake?", she asks. "Sorry, its against the regulations" replies the warder with very little patience dismissing her as a daft old woman. Then, right under his nose and he cannot twig what's going on, she and Ron start planning his escape in faintly coded speech. Next, Searle cuts to the Wallis's parlour behind their little newsagents shop that acts as a front for their criminal activities where she is laying out a full scale diagram of the prison layout and directs Eddie and the boys with great authority exactly how they are going to pull off Ron's breakout.
There isn't much in the way of suspense or dramatic tension and the plain and uninspired way the actual jailbreak is shown betrays the picture's shoestring budget. Yet the cast give straightforward honest performances as working class villians and that helps matters. One of the gang, Slim, who got taken to court himself and witnessed Ron getting his sentence says "I was (there) for not paying any maintenance to my wife for the past five years. What, does she think I'm made of money or something?" The fact that these little dramas was set in modest and realistic working class settings featuring ordinary people with ordinary problems and aspirations was what gave them a little edge and made them likeable to watch. In addition, the cramped little sitting rooms of terraced houses and tiny cornershops from which the action unfolds are beautifully lit by cinematographer Ken Hodges giving them a fine sense of place and period.
All in all, despite the limitations of its tight budgeting, Francis Searle succeeds in fashioning an engaging and unpretentiously ambitious little crime drama that is worth taking the trouble to see.
Rather average low budget British crime drama
chris_gaskin12315 September 2005
Gaolbreak is one of quite a few British crime B movies ITV have shown in the last couple of years or so in the early hours. Though not brilliant, this one is not as bad as the TV listings suggested.
Two brothers, along with their mother and some others plan a burglary but the problem is, one of the brothers is in prison, so a way is devised to get him out. This achieved, they plan the heist in the back room of the newsagents the family run. Along with one of the brother's pregnant girlfriend, they achieve their goal.
This movie is made by Butcher's, who made a lot of these low budgeters at this time. Some were better than others.
The cast doesn't have many big names in it and includes Carol White (Cathy Come Home) and Robert Fyfe, who is now a regular in long running comedy Last of the Summer Wine (he plays Howard). Top billing goes to Peter Reynolds, who appeared in sci-fi "classic" Devil Girl From Mars.
Gaolbreak is a good time filler for an hour or so one evening.
Rating: 2 and a half stars out of 5.
Two brothers, along with their mother and some others plan a burglary but the problem is, one of the brothers is in prison, so a way is devised to get him out. This achieved, they plan the heist in the back room of the newsagents the family run. Along with one of the brother's pregnant girlfriend, they achieve their goal.
This movie is made by Butcher's, who made a lot of these low budgeters at this time. Some were better than others.
The cast doesn't have many big names in it and includes Carol White (Cathy Come Home) and Robert Fyfe, who is now a regular in long running comedy Last of the Summer Wine (he plays Howard). Top billing goes to Peter Reynolds, who appeared in sci-fi "classic" Devil Girl From Mars.
Gaolbreak is a good time filler for an hour or so one evening.
Rating: 2 and a half stars out of 5.
B Awful
glyntreharne-115 February 2003
One of the many second features churned out by Butchers. It has a brainless plot by A.R. Rawlinson about a mother (Avice Landone) and her two criminal sons (Peter Reynolds & David Gregory) who use a newsagents as a front for their nefarious deeds. The gang plan to crack open a safe, unfortunately Gregory, who is the expert in this field, is behind bars. Thus Landone makes plans to break him out. Carol White turns up as the pregnant girlfriend of David Kernan, who has reluctantly became involved in the shenanigans. At this early point in her career White shows none of the promise that was later to win her acclaim in Cathy Comes Home and Poor Cow. In fact after this hysterical performance it is a wonder she was ever employed again. At one stage of the film the actress playing her mother says "Oh Carol, stop acting", to which White's character replies "I'm not acting!". Such insight in an actor is rare.
A new definition of 'low rent'
Leofwine_draca29 September 2015
GAOLBREAK is another low rent British thriller from the reliably poor Butcher's Film Studios. These films all tend to last for an hour or so and contain very little content other than lots of talking from actors who were never seen or heard of again. The plot of GAOLBREAK concerns a criminal gang who must break one of their number out of prison so that they can commit yet another robbery.
For a thriller, the thrills are in short supply here, and there are just a handful of set-pieces involving safecracking, wall-scaling and the like. The action quota is virtually nil, as is the suspense. Instead what we get is a bland, Roger Moore-lookalike leading man, lots of stodgy melodrama, and some random dancing interludes which sap the pacing still further. It's not amazingly poor, but it's pretty worthless.
For a thriller, the thrills are in short supply here, and there are just a handful of set-pieces involving safecracking, wall-scaling and the like. The action quota is virtually nil, as is the suspense. Instead what we get is a bland, Roger Moore-lookalike leading man, lots of stodgy melodrama, and some random dancing interludes which sap the pacing still further. It's not amazingly poor, but it's pretty worthless.
Brit crime potboiler not in the same league as, say, Payroll but a decent supporting feature
williamkenny-621292 February 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Starts very promisingly, with brothers and their dear old mum running a low-rent crime empire from a newsagents. One brother gets himself incarcerated, but mummy and sonny won't let that small detail get in the way of their plans for a heist. Fast moving and funny, this is good undemanding fun, though it does go a bit flat toward the end, with the interesting crooks inevitably comin a-cropper, the dull just-fell-in-with-the-wrong-crowd lad getting the girl, and much 'there we have it, support your local bobby, we're human too, you know, evening all, etc.' in the final reel
It's cinema, but not as we know it
heedarmy13 July 2002
Calling "Gaolbreak", and the other output of its producers Butchers Films, a 'B' picture would be unduly flattering. More like a 'C' picture, or even a 'D' picture. A cast of unknowns, with the exception of Carol White (future star of "Cathy Come Home"), take part in a thrill-less "thriller", in which the eponymous "gaolbreak" (why the American spelling?) appears so simple that one wonders if anyone is left inside the prison.
Despite the plodding story, the film has a certain old-world charm; made in the year of my birth, it presents us with a vanished world in which policemen were avuncular but benign and crooks used no language stronger than "you nit!" Leading man Peter Reynolds bears a startling resemblance to Roger Moore ; by a curious coincidence, co-star Ivor Dean would later play dimwitted Chief Inspector Teal opposite Moore in "The Saint".
Despite the plodding story, the film has a certain old-world charm; made in the year of my birth, it presents us with a vanished world in which policemen were avuncular but benign and crooks used no language stronger than "you nit!" Leading man Peter Reynolds bears a startling resemblance to Roger Moore ; by a curious coincidence, co-star Ivor Dean would later play dimwitted Chief Inspector Teal opposite Moore in "The Saint".
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