Undescribable Perfection

Please don't spend money on this.

The acting in this movie is really good.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The Squeeze. I saw this film years ago.. But lucky enough.. I got on VHS and it's still in good nick.. What I like about this film.. That it was one of those best original British crime thrillers of the 70's.. Long before The Long Good Friday.. which I also enjoyed..This film sees Stacy Keach as an alcoholic, ex-cop and single father Jim Naboth trying to stay on the straight and narrow as a private eye.. Things start to go wrong when his ex-wife Jill (Carol White) gets kidnapped by a bunch of gangsters led by Keith (David Hemmings) and Vic Smith (Stephen Boyd).Mr Foreman (Edward Fox), the new man in Jill's life.. pleads for Naboth to find Jill.As Naboth investigates, he runs into Vic Smith as he tries to figure out what Naboth is up to.. As the film goes on, we see Naboth trying to battle his addiction to alcohol, but there's also his friend Teddy (Freddie Starr) who's there to help him get over it.The music score by David Hentschel was amazing! It's more a sleazy version of The Sweeney..Mind you, director Michael Apted kept the movie going.. Hey! It was the 70's.. I remembered it. Plus this film.. A satisfying 9 out of 10!

STACY KEACH (always under-rated) plays burnt out (alcoholic) ex-Scotland yard inspector, JIM NABOTH a likable, but weak single father of two young boys. The bottle seems to be his only genuine 'care'. Coming out of 'd-tox', he is hero-worshipped by petty ex-con, TEDDY (a natural and warm performance, by none other than TV comic FREDDIE STARR) who tries to keep his ex-arresting officer off the booze, and on the straight and narrow. It seems that, Naboth's ex wife has remarried to a wealthy bank boss, and her (and her daughters)subsequent kidnapping, forces her new husband (EDWARD FOX) turns to Naboth for help. The kidnappers (played with sinister conviction by the late great David HEMMINGS and STEPHEN BOYD) know nothing of this woman's former husband, and pass Naboth of as a washed up alcoholic ex-cop...............Big mistake!MICHAEL APTED's cracking seventies thriller is simplistic in it's unfolding of events (unlike the 'complicated-ness' of THE LONG GOOD Friday) and THE SQUEEZE is all the better for this. It has some great character studies, beneath it's violent melodrama. Most of all, it goes to painful lengths to strip the male ego, off all it's 'macho-posturing', this is, at first, highly evident in KEACH's bare-boned performance (the desperate-ness he conveys, is powerful stuff) but later on in the movie, the kidnappers force Naboth's ex-wife to perform a strip routine, whilst 'The Stylistics' warble 'YOU MAKE ME FEEL BRAND NEW'in the background. This sequence, is meant for the kidnappers titillation, because it's extremely unerotic and painful to watch as a movie viewer. Credit to CAROL WHITE for a great performance during this scene. Apted, proves (especially with that sequence) that it is, indeed a man's world...and all the worse for it.Given that this film is rarely heard of (despite, i think being better than GET CARTER and THE LONG GOOD Friday...sorry guys, i think it is!) is the biggest crime of all. I would ask everyone reading this, to hunt down a copy of this fine film (Where's the DVD release?) and if anyone would like a copy, please get in touch with me.10 out 10, for it's performances (all great, no standouts) it's crisp direction, seedy locations, and above all else, it's cracking soundtrack by David HENTSCHEL.Highly recommended

Diminutive funnyman Freddie Starr will no doubt always be associated with slapstick antics and pratfalls but his career also contains a few unexpected bursts of genius. In the sixties he bothered the beat clubs of Britain as the lead singer of the rockin' combo, and Joe Meek protoges, Freddie Starr & the Midnighters. Then in the seventies, at the peak of his comedy career, he gave a powerful performance in one of British cinema's most cruelly neglected crime flicks.Any film brave enough to feature Yank actor Stacy Keach as a Londoner with Starr as his sidekick, has got to be worthy of praise. The Squeeze (1977) is a hard-boiled cockney crime caper directed by Michael Apted, reknowned documentary maker and helmer of the latest Bond movie. The film, described by the Daily Mail as 'a package tour of thuggery', stars Keach as Jim Naboth a drunken ex-cop who can not keep his 'private dick' business together and regularly wakes in the gutter after endless binges. Starr is Teddy, Naboth's shoplifting mate who attempts to keep him on the wagon.Just released from a drying-out clinic, Naboth is no sooner back on the bottle than he discovers his ex-wife Jill (Carol White) and daughter have been kidnapped. The abduction has been master-minded by Irish villain Vic Smith in an attempt to force Jill's new lover (Edward Fox) into revealing route plans for his compny's fleet of security vans. Carrying out the dirty deed is Smith's right-hand man Keith (David Hemmings), a leering thug who enjoys tormenting and humiliating his prisoners.Naboth stumbles in a drunken haze through the London underworld and endless seedy nightspots, shadowed protectively by Teddy. Despite a succession of beatings and batterings Naboth finally rescues his ex but not before the capital is littered with blood-slattered blaggers, disgarded 'shootahs' and trashed transit vans. All this from the pen of writer Leon Griffiths the creator of knockabout 'mockney' masterpiece Minder, a show which rarely portrayed east-end crims in such a brutal fashion.Despite matching other UK crime classics, such as Get Carter, Villain and The Long Good Friday, for sheer quality The Squeeze remains (generally) unknown, unavailable on video and destined to lurk between tatty TV movies and cheap titillation on Channel Five's late-night slots.Keach is fantastic throughout and Starr plays an oddly maternal character, constantly protecting Naboth, feeding him and even cleaning him up when he finds him surrounded by winos and knocked out on cheap booze. Despite this challenging role, Starr never attempts to wring some comedy from the part and it is surprising his later acting career led to no more than a disappointing BBC drama.Add to these performances an authentic selection of bleak London locations and you have a gritty, urban drama that is rougher than a pair of sandpaper underpants. >

Tough, hard hitting British thriller about an ex Scotland yard man, played very convincingly by Stacy Keach, now trying to keep from becoming a confirmed alcoholic. He finds his old skills are needed again when his wife is kidnapped. The cast are excellent, and they, along with the no holds barred script make this one of the best thrillers of the 70's