Crooks Anonymous

Crooks Anonymous is a film based on the notion that criminality is an addictive behavior like gambling or drinking and can be cured with the same methods. The organization Crooks Anonymous is founded by Wilfrid Hyde-White , but Leslie Phillips presents quite a challenge to the group.

Watching this film I thought I was could have been watching one of those films that critique and not too gently gay conversion therapy..

Julie Christie is in this film which was three years before her breakout Oscar performance in Darling. Nothing Oscar worthy here though.

It's a British comedy that wouldn't go over too well in America. Can you imagine the characters in a Martin Scorsese epic getting cured of their bad behavior in Crooks Anonymous?

It does have a few amusing moments.

This has got to be one of the most least reviewed films of the century. It deserves far more praise than it actually gets. The cast is excellently cast for the roles because they all look so convincing as criminals, especially Stanley Baxter as Brother Widdows. Definitely one of Leslie Phillips most finest films, definitely the one to watch for good old black and white comedy.

Why, someone must have thought, isn't there a 'crooks anonymous' as you have an alcoholics anonymous as well? That's the premise of this film, in which 'brother' Forsdyke undergoes the program, to win back the heart of his love, Babette la Verne. Forsdyke is forced to go in rehab, to get the criminal instincts out of his veins. He is tortured by booby trapped safes only to look for a cigarette.

It is a must-see for fans of British comedy, with a lot of 'I saayyy' and 'sport', witty humor, an unrivalled politeness of the characters and, last but not least, almost invisible sexual innuendo ('You'll get my Christmas present later', says a man when hasty leaving after a kiss).

I enjoyed it a lot, thanks to decent comedic acting of Leslie Philips, Wilfird Hyde-White and Stanley Baxter (in a fitting part in which he changes his outfit all the time, as a predecessor of his own TV show that started a year later). Perhaps only Julie Christie, in her first serious role, is a bit of a dissonance. But she would be great in Fahrenheit 451 a couple of years later.

Director Ken Annakin made all kinds of films (The Battle of the Bulge, for example), but was really into silly adventure comedies with rather long titles, like Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 hours 11 minutes and Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies, all scripts from Jack Davies, as is also this one. Of course, it is all a bit dated now and then, but sometimes I wonder why this kind of innocent comedy has just died out in this day and age. It is almost impossible nowadays to see a film that is not either totally ludicrous, or over-dramatic. That's why we have this problem today that so many comedies are packed with boring melodrama. Not this one though!

Crooks Anonymous is directed by Ken Annakin and written by Henry Blyth and Jack Davies. It stars Leslie Phillips, Stanley Baxter, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Julie Christie, James Robertson Justice and Pauline Jameson. Music is by Muir Matheson and George Martin and cinematography by Ernest Steward. Plot finds Phillips as a habitual criminal who is desperately trying to go straight for his gorgeous girlfriend (Christie). He enrols at Crooks Anonymous, a secretive organisation run by Hyde-White that uses interesting tactics to wean their clients off the thieve.

Out of Anglo-Amalgamated Film Distributors, Crooks Anonymous is the kind of innocuous black and white British comedy that gets in and does its entertaining job without fuss or pointless filler. Cast are most agreeable, the story has the requisite daftness about it, and it's all smiles come the finale. Trick of the narrative is having us the audience be on the side of the thieving bounder, who is wonderfully essayed by the suave Phillips. That he wants to do right by the scrummy Miss Christie (her first year of big screen acting) obviously resonates with the red blooded male members of the audience, but that he is so charming, elegant even when relieving unsuspecting members of the public of their possessions, really has all comers cheering the gentleman cad on! Fun is garnered here from the tactics used by Hyde-White to get Phillips on the straight, methods such as booby trapped safes bring the joy, as does the many guises used by an on form Stanley Baxter. While a flip flop for the Christmas set finale has a delicious ironical flavour to it. There's nothing overtly side-splitting about the film, and definitely there's no raucous-like-screwball histrionics within either, this is just good old enjoyable fare from a production company who had a particularly good track record in the light entertainment department. 7/10

Stripper Julie Christie tells Leslie Phillips it's over unless he reforms. He finds CROOKS ANONYMOUS is the organization to help him tread the straight and narrow. However, can they do the same under his influence?

The usual suspects show up, including Wilfred Hyde-White as the head of the reforming organization, James Robertson Justice as the obnoxious head of a department store on Christmas eve and Stanley Baxter as a Dwight Frye sort of master of disguise. Ken Annakin's comedy is rather brittle, but all the parts work.

The movie is Julie Christie's film debut, and the camera, under the supervision of Ernest Steward, clearly lusts for her. No matter where she is in the shot, it seems lit to feature her liberally visible body.... or perhaps it's just me. The early 1960s was a time when ogling but (barely) censor-compliant comedies seemed to be the only thing keeping the British film industry afloat. As the only young woman in sight, Miss Christie was the obvious choice for rubbernecking.Nonetheless, it's clear that the camera loves her.