Panic

Some unusual aspects to this thriller,which surfaced recently on a London tv station screening.For one the actors at the bottom of the cast are better known than the two leads.John Gilling uses unusual camera angles in imitation of Carol Reed.Reasonable story though there are some implausible aspects.

By the end of John Billing's 1963 Neo Noir PANIC, a has-been boxer, who just got a pounding in the ring, is about to be killed by a punk crook in a back alley, and what climaxes into a sparse b-movie was quite complicated, even surreal, beginning with what should have been an easy jewelry office heist that morphs into the most hackneyed plot device ever...

And bad old amnesia's thrust upon lead ingenue Janine Gray, the secretary where the diamond got swiped by a gang plotted by her boyfriend played by an edgy, James Cagney-looking, trumpet-playing loser Dyson Lovell as Johnny, sending two goons including JUNGLE GIRLS lowlife Brian Weske and a mug-faced Stanley Meadows...

But PANIC only seems to be about these seedy crooks until the entire plot deliberately derails into a nighttime odyssey by amnesiac ingenue Janine Gray as Janine, who, like ODD MAN OUT, becomes an unwitting post-heist victim of street-life circumstance, happening upon an eclectic lot ranging from a lusty landlord and a deranged Beatnik painter...

And then something, or rather, someone happens, and it's that heart-of-gold palooka who winds up saving the girl from rowdy jerks in a swing cafe and, while he's about fifteen years older, their lack of romantic chemistry makes for an endearing friendship the mazy story almost completely settles into, and for once the audience has real human beings to genuinely care about, ramping-up suspense when that aforementioned climax nears.

Janine Gray works for a Hatton Gardens jeweler. One evening, her boss asks her to stay late. Two Germans are coming in, and she's bilingual. It turns out they're a couple of crooks associated with her boyfriend. They kill the jeweler, take a big stone, and knock her out. When she comes to, she's in a fugue state, with her memory gone. She goes into hiding, but the police want to find her. So does her boy friend, and his associates. She wanders around, until she runs into Glyn Houston, a boxer on the downslide who takes a fancy to help rescue the damsel in distress.

It's a bit of idiot plotting, strengthened by Miss Gray's uncertainty of what's going on. The acting is solid, but it all could be quickly cleared up, and the police are on the job, and doing a good one. Still, the acting is good, and the camerawork by Geoffrey Faithfull is solid. Faithfull had been a cinematographer for Hepworth back in the silent era, and would work through the end of the 1960s, totaling almost 200 features and shorts in a long career. He died in 1979, aged 86.

Lots of 1960s jazz-style music sets the tone for this disappointingly run-of-the-mill crime noir from John Gilling. Janine Gray works for a jeweller in London's famous Hatton Garden when she falls victim to a robbery that kills her boss and leaves her unconscious. She awakens with amnesia and in panic goes into hiding - not just from the pursuing police, but also from her boyfriend (Dyson Lovell) who is mixed up with the thieves. In her confusion, she encounters a boxer - Glyn Houston - who takes a shine to her and gives her shelter whilst she begins to piece it all together. It has more action - including a boxing match - than many of it's British counterparts and the acting is solid enough; but nothing much new to see here...

This is a pretty entertaining movie, proving that the Brits were capable of film noir in the 60's. It has an interesting beatnik/jazz-era vibe more associated with late 50's US films. While it leans toward melodrama, particularly the acting of the beautiful lead actress, it stays true to film noir with its very dark behaviors and outcomes and a pervasive hopelessness. High contrast B&W (or is it just a cheap Sinister Cinema print--but thanks anyway, guys, for making this available!!), jaunty camera angles and nightmarish city images keep it interesting. (Side note: thru Amazon, many obscure noir and thriller titles, probably all public domain, are available in bare bones prints by Sinister Cinema for $8.99 each, a bargain for those interested in such fare.)