Touches You

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The Criminal (AKA: The Concrete Jungle) is directed by Joseph Losey and written by Alun Owen. It stars Stanley Baker, Sam Wanamaker, Margrit Saad, Patrick Magee, Grégoire Aslan, Rupert Davies and Laurence Naismith. Music is by John Dankworth and cinematography by Robert Krasker.Johnny Bannion (Baker) is an ex-con who's taken part in the robbery of a racetrack but is caught and sent back to prison; but not before he has time to bury the cash from the gig. Back in prison Johnny is keeping the cards close to his chest but finds there are big crime forces wanting a piece of his action. With plans afoot to "twist" his arm, and his girlfriend kidnapped, Johnny knows something is going to have to give...All my sadness and all my joy, comes from loving a thieving boy.Once tagged as being "The toughest picture ever made in Britain", The Criminal obviously seems tame by today's increasingly over the top standards. Yet it still packs quite a punch and shows the very best of Messrs Losey, Baker and Krasker.In some ways it's a strange film, the pace is purposely slow and the narrative is bolstered by bouts of hang wringing tension, where periods of calm come laced with a grim oppressive atmosphere, but there's often electricity bristling in the air when Bannion (Baker is magnetic and brilliant as he apparently models the character on Albert Dimes) is holding court. Even when on the outside and feeling the love of a good woman, Bannion exudes a loner like danger, he's tough but being a hard bastard can't break him free from the shackles of his life. We know it and you sense that he himself knows it, and it gives the film an exciting edge not befitting the downbeat tone of the story. Characters here have not been delivered from happy land, you will struggle to find someone here who isn't nasty of heart, bad in the head or simply foolish. Inside this concrete jungle it's a multi cultural hive of emotional disintegration, and at the core stirring the honey pot is one Johnny Bannion. The film makers here are all about pessimism, self-destruction and the battle against the system and the underworld, right up to (and including) a finale fit to grace the best noirs of the 40s. Losey and Krasker ensure the prison sequences are stifling, the walls close in, the bars and netting are unsettling and close ups of the odd ball assortment of crims and warders strike an incarcerated chord, visually it's an impressive piece of noirish film. But it's not just about shadows and filtered light, the director has skills aplenty with his camera. A kaleidoscope shot has a delightfully off kilter kink to it, while his overhead filming and pull away crane usage for the frosty cold finale is as memorable as it is skillful in selection. Musically the pic begins and ends with the soulful warbling of Cleo Laine, the tune is a Prison Ballad (Thieving Boy), and it's tonally perfect, while Dankworth and his orchestra provide jazz shards that thrust in and out of the story like knowing accomplices to fate unfolding. Set design is superb, especially for the recreation of a Victorian prison which is impressive and makes it easy to not lament an actual prison location used, while the supporting actors are very strong, particularly Magee (Zulu) who excels doing sneaky menace as Warder Barrows.Flaws? Not any if you don't actually expect the toughest film made in Britain back in the day (though it was banned in some countries!). I do wonder why Baker had to be an Irish character and not just be Welsh and therefore do his natural Welsh accent? And if we are are being over critical we could suggest there are some prison stereotypes that even by 1960 were looking frayed around the edges. But ultimately this is tough stuff, a gritty and moody piece of cinema with class on either side of the camera. 8/10

No doubt about it, Stanley Baker is a riveting screen presence. He commands just by appearing. Maybe it's that patented jut-jawed intensity. In my little book, he's the main reason for catching up with this British crime drama, which otherwise is a disappointment considering that noir-master Joe Losey is in charge.Admittedly, I lost some of the British dialogue because of my American ears. Nonetheless, there's a one-note monotony to the visuals, the characters, and the storyline-- no one can be trusted, life is grim, and the visuals rub our nose in the ugliness. Still, the movie is titled Concrete Jungle, not Concrete Vacation, so as far as the marquee is concerned, there is 'truth in packaging'. Nonetheless, there's little suspense or tension in the screenplay, an odd outcome for a crime drama. Events simply follow on one another without much structural development. Why the robbery itself is passed over is puzzling since that would have provided needed suspense. My guess is that a detailed depiction would have followed too closely on the heels of Kubrick's superb racetrack robbery in The Killing (1956). But, whatever the reason, both the crime and the aftermath are dealt with in unimaginative fashion.Losey does keep things moving in fast-paced style, while Wanamaker's slippery gangster represents an interesting character. Nonetheless, the result lacks the compelling social ambiguities of his better American films. All in all, I agree with reviewer BOUF—the result is "clunky and uneven", with an "under-developed script". Considering the source, I expected better.

Stanley Baker's dodgy Irish accent strikes the only false note in Joseph Losey's hard-nosed crime drama. A lethal combination of charm, guile and brute force makes jailbird Johnny Bannion the top dog in B block. Once he's released, Bannion is plunged straight back into a world of free-flowing booze, casual sex and cool jazz in his well-appointed bachelor pad. But there's no thought of going straight as he plots a lucrative racetrack heist with the reptilian Carter (Sam Wanamaker). The intrigue here lies not in the heist itself but in the web of betrayals that follow, as Losey and screenwriter Alun Owen build an authentic portrait of the criminal underworld on both sides of the prison wall. There's no hint here of the cartoonish Swinging London and stereotypical cockney villains that continue to plague British cinema. Robert Krasker's photography lends a stark beauty to the pollarded trees in the prison courtyard and Johnny Dankworth's score, punctuated by a mournful Cleo Laine ballad, is superb. With its harsh, sweaty depiction of prison violence, this is a million miles from the upper-class shenanigans depicted in the director's later films like The Servant and The Go-Between.

Joseph Losey's C.V. was nothing if not eclectic.Once considered by some critics as a major force in British Cinema,he can,with hindsight ,be seen to have been following trends rather than creating them for most of his career.Nonetheless,his films were,as a rule,recognisably the work of a considerable artist,albeit one working within the limits imposed by the studios,and within clearly defined genres. He was involved in film-making for 45 years,right up to his death in 1984. Blacklisted by the H.U.A.C.,Mr Losey brought a welcome dash of verve and inmagination to a fairly moribund British Film Industry. He could take a straightforward prison movie like "The Criminal" - destined to be a pot-boiler in the hands of many an English hack director - and turn it into a rather remarkable work. The British cannot do crime films.I know we think we can,and we certainly make enough of them,but the results give lie to the proverb that practise makes perfect.It's not enough to fill the screen with snarling professional Cockneys with tattooed fingers like bunches of sausages spouting rhyming - slang never heard outside of a script writer's study in Islington.Watch Britpop gangster films like"Lock,stock etc" or "Essex Boys" and you can scarcely hear the dialogue for laughter and the more ludicrously violent the film gets the more the audience laughs."The Criminal" is not noticeably risible. There is violence,but it is not comic book violence,it is the sort of violence that leaves it's victims scarred physically and mentally. There is real menace.Mr Stanley Baker and Mr Sam Wanamaker are hard men. Compared to them Mr Sean Bean is a pussycat,Mr Vinnie Jones a dilettante. It is not so much a film noir as a film gris,the exteriors shot in bright light,softening the contrast whilst retaining pin-sharp focusing.These shadings of grey reflect the moral ambivalence of the main characters.Only the truly unpleasant P.O. Barrow,played with hissing relish by Mr Patrick Magee,is shot in high contrast. Mr Stanley Baker is very convincing as a major criminal,hardly surprising when you consider he had been known to move in the same social circles as some of London's biggest villains.He makes no unnecessary gestures,remains aloof from his fellow prisoners,truly a man apart.You just know he won't be taking up those courses in basket weaving. The plot - such as it is - revolves around a "Thieves fall out" scenario familiar to moviegoers since the first train robber galloped across the flickering screen.It's familiarity doesn't matter,its what Mr Losey does with it that counts,after all,"Romeo and Juliet" wasn't exactly state of the art cutting edge audience challenging stuff when Shakespeare first got hold of it. Released at a time when British films were just about to enjoy a short - lived renaissance,"The Criminal" ended up being trampled under the feet of critics lavishing excessive praise on a succession of flat cap and whippet sagas that eventually disappeared up their own outdoor privy. Viewed at a distance of 45 years,Mr Wanamaker crossing the street in his camelhair coat is an image that will remain long after the last crumpled Woodbine is ground out in an overflowing ashtray in a smoke - filled changing room before the poor exploited hero runs out - coughing to play football/rugby league/pigeon racing in front of an audience of seven men and a dog - probably a whippet.