Naked Fury

Naked Fury is a hard boiled B feature set in London. Eddy (Reed De Rouen) is the leader of a gang of criminals who have robbed a warehouse. The volatile Johnny (Kenneth Cope) has attacked the night watchman who later dies in hospital.

Carol who is the daughter of nightwatchman walked in during the robbery to see her dad. The gang take her as hostage.

After the job the gang hideout on the top floor of a rickety old warehouse. Eddy will keep watch of Carol as he wonders what to do with her. The others have to act normal and get back to their homes. They will split the loot later.

Easier said than done. One robber desperately needs money as his son is ill. Another has a wife who wants half his share of the loot in order to give him an alibi.

Johnny is looked up by an old friend of his who suspects Johnny has been up to no good. He also takes a shine to Carol but he was the one attacked her father. He is also willing to finish off Carol if the need ever arises.

What raises Naked Fury from a routine quickie B movie is the climax. It resembles more a disaster movie. The criminals fall out among themselves, the police are on their case as the floor of the warehouse collapses.

Reed De Rouen leads the crew back from the heist with more money than they had anticipated. Come tomorrow, he'll arrange for passports and passage. It's all going better than planned, except for having to kill the night watchman and bringing his daughter back to the dilapidated building they use for a hide out. De Rouen thinks it can be easily managed. But he's wrong.

It's another of the cheap B features that Charles Saunders found himself directing, after a fast start more than a decade earlier. Happily, and despite the cast of actors I don't recognize, he has a good script by Guido Coen with some surprises in it, and one or two good set pieces for Walter J. Harvey to shoot as the plans collapse and the cohesion of his gang go along with it. Definitely worth a look.

Talking Pictures weren't kidding when they prefaced this nihilistic little crime drama (with a script in which cuts had to be made before it was eligible for a 'U' certificate) about a gang unraveling following a heist with their warning that it contained scenes that might upset younger viewers; especially the truly apocalyptic ending.

Probably patterned after Kubrick's 'The Killing' (with Ann Lynn in the equivalent to Marie Windsor's role in the original), like 'Reservoir Dogs' the robbery itself is not shown, and like Tarantino's film the setting itself hangs heavily over the characters, the most sympathetic of whom is black and whose colour is never mentioned.

It's quite a neat B Movie, the plot is quite clever, a girl is held captive by a group of four criminals, who've carried out a large heist, but have no idea what to do with her. The twist being that her father, the Night watchman was coshed by one of the quartet of robbers.

I quite liked this, it's an intriguing watch, it's pretty clever and delivers a few neat twists, the best of them being where Carol hears a message on the radio relating to her father. The ending is wonderfully dramatic, and features a few cleverly shot scenes, the film work makes the action appear more dramatic then first appeared. It's a good early film for Kenneth Cope, Johnny is one of the more interesting characters, Cope was suave and charismatic.

The problem I have with this film is with the character of Carol, Leigh Madison is fine, it's not that it's her behaviour towards Eddy, it makes no sense, surely she'd have despised him, it oddly seemed she fell in love with him.

How many of these forgotten goodies are out there. Enjoyed it even if it is a little short, 7/10

NAKED FURY is a fun time-wasting B-movie thriller from 1959. This one clocks in at around an hour in length and has an unusual setting to distinguish it from most: almost all of the action takes place in rooms at the top of a derelict building which is threatening to crumble to the ground at any moment. The story is the usual fallout between thieves after a successful robbery and features a cast of B-movie performers doing their bit.

This is hardly the kind of film to set the world on fire although it's quite passable and it does feature an impressive and elaborate effects-filled climax which I can't remember seeing the likes of elsewhere in this genre. Stodgy Reed De Rouen is a forgettable lead but a youthful Kenneth Cope does very well early on in his career as the slimiest villain of the piece. Leigh Madison does acceptable damselling in distress and Guyana-born performer Tommy Eytle appears decades before he became an EASTENDERS regular. Stock director Charles Saunders handles things while the hard-working Guido Coen produces. You could do a lot worse.