The Primitives

A group of night club musicians,featuring an exotic dancer,commit jewel robberies,wherever they perform.

THE PRIMITIVES is one of the many routine minor second feature crime movies churned out in the UK in the late 50's and early 60's.This one is a little unusual,firstly in the occupations of the crooks,and secondly in showing a woman as the gang boss(not very common at the period,or now come to that).She is played by talented Jan Holden,an actress with an uncommon and striking sort of beauty,in a rare leading role(Miss Holden is clearly not the masked exotic dancer we see performing in the Primitives stage act).Lighter in tone,and with less overt violence than was common in these sort of movies,THE PRIMITIVES lacks any real thrills or dramatic tension.Jan Holden excepted,the cast mostly act without much enthusiasm. Some(like me)quite enjoy watching this kind of low budget movie,as they preserve an early sixties Britain we remember with affection.

One odd point is that Jan Holden,leader of the Primitives,uncannily resembles Tracy Cattell,lead singer of British 80's pop band-the Primitives!

Never in any danger of winning any awards but an enjoyable period piece from which seems to be a different planet just sixty plus years ago.

An unusual plot which was possibly the first time a plot like this had been used, some plots are far from being new of course with just a rehash of an old plot.

Few reviews for it so far but it's very well worthwhile watching. John Junkin appears briefly but most, if not all, of his film appearances are brief. The practically absent airport security will come as a surprise to younger viewers but before "9/11" US airport security was similarly non existent.