You Pay Your Money

Thus says Hugh McDermott in this lively but inconsequential little Butchers quickie; and his words are borne out by the eye-watering lack of respect with which he paws a batch of supposedly priceless, centuries-old volumes filched by the Nazis from the monastery at Monte Cassino in 1944.

Second and third-billed are glamorous fifties femmes Jane Hylton & Honor Blackman; the former nearing the end of her tenure as a blonde Bad Girl, the latter - ironically older than Hylton but who outlived her by over forty years - still five years away from 'The Avengers'. Blackman has already adopted the sleek mane she wore for the remainder of her long life, and for much of the film wears trousers and a stylishly-worn scarf; but here it's Hylton who packs heat while Blackman instead uses one of her high-heeled shoes to put a goon's lights out.

It is a rather confused narrative, with newly married Hugh McDermott and Honor Blackman a pair of for-hire smugglers. They're hired by Ivan Samson to shift a couple of crates of smuggled books, while Samson enjoys the company of Jane Hylton. Soon enough, however, competing forces wearing fezzes stick their noses into the action, and McDermott bends his efforts towards getting back his wife.

Although she is third billed, Miss Blackman gets a lot of starlet build-up in this cheap movie, showing off her figure in in a one-piece bathing suit, and her athleticism just as the plot goes silly. There's a couple of unlikely bouts of fisticuffs and a shoot-out, and director Maclean Rogers avoids long takes and dialogue scenes with more than one person in a shot. It shows itself to be a cheap B movie throughout, but there is some nice chemistry between McDermott and Miss Blackman in the opening sequences.

A stodgy, late '50s-era thriller from Butcher's Film Productions. This one's a lamentable effort about an everyday guy getting mixed up with a gang of Middle Eastern smugglers. When he discovers that his delectable wife has been kidnapped by the group, he must go after them to seek her safe return.

There's some mild intrigue in this film, and a few characters who double-cross each other, but for the most part it's very dull and it lacks the lively charm of other productions like SMOKESCREEN or IMPACT. Hugh McDermott was a poor choice for the film's hero; his American accent is awful and he seems uninterested in the proceedings.

In a bid to spice things up there are a couple of fight scenes thrown into the mix but they have more in common with a bar-room brawl in the Wild West than a genteel British thriller. Watch out for the lovely Honor Blackman who is given little to do as the kidnapped wife.

This is a low budget B film about a husband and wife who become mixed up in a tussle over valuable ancient manuscripts of an ancient mystical writer that may lead to a revolution in the Middle East.

Hugh McDermott and Honor Blackman play the spouses who investigate the attempted burglary at the house of a financier. The financier's lover (Jane Hylton) is suspected as she was formerly the lover of a gangster and she leads them to the search of the writings of the middle eastern philosopher which has inspired an extreme political group.

The film has few airs and graces. Blackman is required to look glamorous as we see her in a swimming costume early on. Later she is the damsel in distress. Jane Wilton makes the deeper impression as the villainess Rosemary Delgado who really is alluring as well as being despicable.

Its a serviceable quickie that probably featured a Middle Eastern plot in the aftermath of the Suez Crisis. Honor Blackman fans will look it up as a curiosity.

What WERE they doing in the prolonged first scene in the dark?

Honor Blackman is the best thing about this movie, but she is burdened with those frumpy 50s middle-class clothes. "Doris from the office" dresses completely differently - and far more attractively.

Others have dissed the fight scenes - looks like they couldn't afford a fight director and the cast just improvised. The result is the fights look unusually realistic. McDeremott and Blackman also clamber ungracefully over a wall - no clever cutting making it look easy.

Yes the underworld character struggles to conceal his public-school origins, and the owner of a small house-boat attempts to persuade us that he is Scottish, for no good reason.

Much of the action takes place in stuffy interiors crammed with repro tat. And then I fell asleep.