A 1954 heist gone wrong movie. A quartet of four men, both American & British, engage in their common financial woes at a bar in Blighty when one finally suggests a solution to their problems by robbing a postal truck containing nearly 90,000 in pound notes which are about to be retired from the system. The Yanks are Richard Basehart who quit his job back in the States to retrieve his wife, played by Joan Collins, thinking something bad has happened to her (it has; she's under the thumb of her domineering mother who won't let her go even though she's pregnant), John Ireland, a serviceman friend of Basehart who's married to an actress wife, played by Oscar winner Gloria Grahame, who's stepping out on him w/her co-star right under his nose. On the British side, we have a boxer, played by Stanley Baker, who has just won 1000 much needed pounds in his last bout even though he boxed w/a broken hand which comes to bite him when it has to be amputated due to the gangrene while Laurence Harvey, a fop of a husband not above running up gambling & drinking tabs around town whose wife has had it up to here w/him & even his placation to his father, played by Robert Morley, falls on deaf ears when no one will bail him out. Convincing the other fellows the gig is a sure thing, Harvey immediately robs a car (which no one expected!) & brings along a satchel filled w/guns (surprise again!) & although technically the robbery plays out, their circumstances turn dire when Harvey opens up on the cops & any bystanders (he had a reputation for being a cruel soldier, opening fire on surrendering enemy & such) & finally knocking off his partners one by one till we reach the crushing finale. Director Lewis Gilbert (who would make 3 Bond films) keeps the tension palpable w/each character, sans Harvey, wrapped in their own cloaks of desperation but one wishes the prevailing better mind among them would withstand the tight grip of fate & just walk away but this film will have none of that.
Review of The Good Die Young
