Jack le mystérieux

If you combine Robin Hood with a communist, you'd get Jack Drake (Tom Walls)...a high-class crook who delights in stealing from the rich and giving to various deserving charities in Britain. Despite being a crook, however, you cannot help but like Drake and his exploits. The same can be said of Drake in the story...he cannot help but like his exploits as well...so much so that he wrote his memoires and had them published anonymously. Now, millions of Brits can read about 'Crackerjack' (his alter ego) and his brushes with the law.

While you might think that the police would be Crackerjack's worst enemies, there is a vicious gang who want to capture him even more. Why? Because twice during the course of the film he outsmarts them and steals jewels the gang intended to steal. To stop him, the gang recruits an innocent lady...the Baroness (Lilli Palmer). But once she realizes her mistake, can she alert Crackerjack before their wicked plan is enacted?

Tom Walls is a middle-aged man in the film and not especially handsome. However, despite this, he is mega-charming and easy to like....and it's a shame that very few these days have even heard of this excellent actor. My advice is watch the film....he's amazingly good in it and manages to make a somewhat ridiculous plot work...and work well.

This an early attempt at the gentleman thief idea and it works beautifully. The film offers much elegance, wit and sophistication, just like its two stars. If only Hollywood produced this type of film today.

The Wonderful Lilli Palmer was very young when she made CRACKERJACK and she was a marvelous actress and a fabulously beautiful and charming actress and this film was just the beginning for her. She was rather unique in British films since most of the so called Gainsborough gals of the time were British such as Margaret Lockwood, Phyllis Calvert, Patricia Roc, Sally Gray, etc and only Miss Palmer, German born, went on to an international career and worked in Hollywood as well as in France and Germany over the years, coming back to British films from time to time. She was unique among the all British group of gals making names for themselves in the late 30s and 40s in British cinema. She married Rex Harrison, had a son with him and happens to be my favorite all time actress.

A typically 30s-style charismatic gentleman thief and master of disguise tackles a dangerous criminal gang while posing as a butler at a stately home. Vintage in age rather than in quality, and not as good as the identically-titled British kids' TV programme of three or four decades later.

The film begins with a scene in which a plane is hijacked by a gang of criminals and some precious diamonds are stolen. However it is not the gang that gets away with the loot but rather the master thief and modern day Robin Hood, Jack Drake, who has beaten the gang to it. Meanwhile, the latest craze in London is the memoirs of a thief, who goes by the pseudonym of "Crackerjack." When a string of precious pearls is stolen at a society party, Crackerjack is suspected, owning to a number of idiosyncrasies of the culprit, which are also mentioned in Crackerjack's book. But who is Crackerjack - is he Jack Drake? And will Jack get away with his philanthropic thieving?

This film is good entertainment but nothing special. The sort of story that the film uses involving gangs of criminals, stolen jewels and princesses (or a Baroness in this case) has been used so many times before - even by Tom Walls himself - that it needs something special to make it work. There are a few fairly uninventive twists in the plot - the people you least expect turn out to be criminals and so on. All of it leads to a rather formulaic showdown towards the end of the film. Nevertheless, there are a few good surprises which add interest to what would otherwise be a fairly average film. For me, the most disappointing thing is that we know who Crackerjack is for almost all of the film. I think it would've added a whole extra dimension to the film if the answer had've been denied us until the end - and it would've justified the existence of the "Crackerjack" book, which, as the film stood, was totally peripheral to the plot.

Tom Walls makes a wonderful gentleman criminal; almost as great as James Mason, but in a different, more old-world chivalrous way. His name on the bill was what made me decide to watch this film, and he is definitely its strongest link. The rest of the cast are nothing special and I found Lilli Palmer a tad annoying but an acceptable leading lady. Overall the story is sufficiently engrossing and consistent enough to make this reasonable viewing - but only slightly above average.