Crosstrap

Gary Cockrell ("Geoff") and his wife Jill Adams ("Sally") retreat to an isolated rural house so he can concentrate on finishing his magnum opus. Once there, however, peace and quiet is the last thing they get. The discover a corpse in the bathtub and are soon inundated by Laurence Payne ("Duke") and his gang of hoodlums who have been using the remoteness of the house as an ideal base to fence their stolen goods. It's got quite an irritating jazz-style soundtrack, the ambitious attempt to film outdoors makes the lighting dingy and the over-complicated plot is far too clunkily scripted to keep your attention from straying elsewhere. Payne and Adams - alongside Zena Marshall "Rina" try their best, but it's all just too feeble and the ending is daft.

Anyone familiar with the later work of director Robert Hartford-Davis will not be unduly surprised at the nihilism and sleaziness of his debut feature, with a noisy jazz score by Steve Race.

An early home invasion film following in the footsteps of 'The Petrified Forest', 'The Desperate Hours' and 'Private Property; complete with the creepy sexual element the latter had recently introduced to the genre. Despite the heroine remarking upon the prettiness of the countryside surrounding the holiday home upon which two rival criminal gangs converge, the bleakness of the surrounding landscape actually heightens the general grimness of the piece.

The creaky production values (not helped by the fuzziness of what may be the only surviving print) at first makes it resemble a old TV play, but it's air of ill-contained violence (and lust) - not to mention the abandon with which guns get waved about - would at the time have emphatically have made it drive-in fodder had they then had drive-ins in Britain...

This is not the best or worst of British B movies.It tries too hard to include too many plot strands in too little time with,consequently,too little explanation.Why does Laurence Paume étant to take Jill Adams away with him rather than Zena Marshall.It is good that this film has been rescued from oblivion

A young couple have a nasty surprize to find the isolated cottage they have rented to be occupied by a murdered man and a violent gang of jewel thieves led by woman chasing psycho Duke, ably played by talented actor and author Laurence Payne. His first critically acclaimed crime novel, The Nose On My Face was published in the same year as this film was made. Jill Adams, brunette rather than her usual blonde, is the hostage he lusts after, despite having a moll in the form of glamorous Zena Marshall. Crude though it is in both characterisation and direction, Crosstrap in some ways prefigures the kind of Brit gangster movie of later decades especially when a rival gang lays siege to the cottage with ensuing mass shootout.

Based on a novel by John Newton Chance a now forgotten author who churned out dozens of crime potboilers over decades, it is at least never dull. Enjoyed most of all the driving jazz score, which couldn't get out of my head, from Steve Race, a once familiar figure on BBC television and radio.

Married couple Gary Cockrell and Jill Adams rent an isolated cottage so that he can finish a book. What they don't know is that a gang of crooks headed by Laurence Payne has been using the place as a hideout and a place to store loot.

Payne's got a lot to contend with, a rival mob outside as he waits for a plane in the morning to get away and a moll played by Zena Marshall who ain't happy with his attentions to Adams.

Marshall steals this film whenever she's on screen a woman you do not scorn. Sadly though this one is one of those quota quickies or at least has the look of one from the old days in the 30s in Great Britain.