Crooks in Cloisters

"Crooks In Cloisters" is the kind of comic movie that is unlikely to be ever made again, mores the pity. After a gang of London thieves rob a train their leader Walter (Ronald Fraser) finds a place for them to hide out until the heat dies down. It is a disused monastery on an island off the coast of Cornwall. They disguise themselves as monks & eventually get used to & even like their new lives. Brother Willy (Melvyn Hayes) becomes a pig farmer whilst Brother Squirts (Bernard Cribbins) gets himself a pet goat and collects apples from the orchard. Brother Lorenzo (Gregoire Aslan) tends the vineyard & Brother Specs (Davy Kaye) gets lumbered with milking the cows. Barbara Windsor plays the Father Superior Walt's gangsters moll Bikini & as she is very obviously a woman she is easily the most preposterous monk of them all. Walt wants her to prepare the gangs meals & she tells him she can't cook so he gets Squirts to buy a cookbook on a visit to the mainland. When they get a visit by a couple of genuine monks Walt tells Specs in his thick Cockney accent to, "Keep your trap shut. You know how bad you talk". Squirts is a heavy gambler & is the owner of a greyhound. He asks a local fisherman visitor from the mainland, Phineas (Wilfred Brambell) to place a £100 bet on the dogs at Hackney races. It wins costing the bookmaker a lot of money. The bookie complains to a detective from Scotland Yard who immediately becomes suspicious. Phineas grand-daughter June is played by the beautiful young Francesca Annis who Willy falls in love with. When Walt decides it is time to leave the rest of the gang have got used to their new lives & are reluctant to do so. Bikini has become a good cook & is particularly annoyed. Walt tells the them, "Get on her!. She didn't know that chips was made from taters until she read it in that book I bought her". The gang are just leaving their hideout when detectives from London roll up, but they are too late & get caught. Willy had left slightly earlier with his beloved June & is the only gang member to escape the law. The reviews by others for this movie are somewhat mixed but I liked "Crooks In Cloisters" a lot.

Having pulled over a train robbery where they succeed in stealing a pair of printing plates from the mint, Walt's gang find themselves top of Superintendent Mungo's `to do' list. Seeking to get away from the heat the gang go to a monastery on an England off the south coast of England. Despite finding the life of work and celibacy hard going the gang find the remote location the perfect place for reworking hot nick before selling it on.

Very much of it's time, this comedy features plenty of famous faces from British comedy and a style of humour that is based more on attitude than fantastic jokes. As such it isn't really that funny but is more amiable than anything else. The laughs are expected to come from the juxtaposition of the cockney slang with the monk's dress. It works to a certain extent – but really you need to be content to make do with this style of humour and not much else. I rarely laughed out loud and the set up only brought a vague sense of humour to the film.

The story goes nowhere in particular. I won't be spoiling anything to say that our gangsters soon fall into the monk's life with a certain affection. Rather than go anywhere the film just gets as much mileage out of the set up as possible before quickly drawing things to a close with an unsatisfying and hasty conclusion. It is pretty poor but if you're after a dated piece of British comedy then this is OK but not as funny as the better of the Carry On series.

The cast are OK. All well know faces playing their caricatures to full effect. Windsor is a little annoying and the film uses her for her blonde bimbo looks and her breasts. The majority all have cockney clichés to act out and do it with a certain amount of fun. It's good to see faces like Cribbins, Fraser, Kaye, Brambell and Hayes in a film.

Overall this is not very good but I didn't expect very much from basically a sub-Carry On caper movie. Manages to get some smiles out of the set up but really it's a bit stretched with nowhere to go at the end.

Little Walter and his motley crew of robbers decide to get out of London after pulling off a tiny little train robbery. Holing up in a disused monastery off the Cornish coast, the gang start to find the way of life somewhat appealing, could it be that this gang of villains are going to get the habit?

There is no beating around the bush here, anyone outside of Britain are advised to stay well clear of this very British caper. It's amiable if very forgettable, but it most certainly shines as a beacon of Great British sensibilities. It's the sort of British film that would have benefited from having some top line writers at the helm, I smile when I think what Gilliat, Launder, Galton or Simpson could have done with the premise on offer. As it is it, it's daft nonsense that plays out exactly as you would expect, but upon the finale reveal, it still manages to cheer the spirit and bring about a cheesy grin. This is mainly down to the highly engaging cast that have managed to pull the discerning viewer into their new and engaging lives. Ronald Fraser, Barbara Windsor, Bernard Cribbins, Davy Kaye, Wilfrid Brambell and Melvyn Hayes are all instantly recognisable to fans of British film and television, so if you be one of those people? Then give it a go with your expectation level set at amiable. 6/10

After a slick credits sequence parodying the Great Train Robbery (with Barbara Windsor taking over as driver!) this surprisingly elaborate production in CinemaScope and Technicolor relocates of all places to Cornwall were it proves disconcertingly rambling and preachy (if you'll pardon the word)!

Worth noting are brief supporting appearances by a young Corin Redgrave in his film debut, Arnold Ridley treading water before becoming a household name in 'Dad's Army', and former Devil Girl from Mars Patricia Laffan making her final film appearance as Gregoire Aslan's foxy blonde mistress.

Something to watch whilst having a severe cold and being stuck in the house on a freezing November afternoon. The performers try their best but the plot is so wafer-thin and episodic and the basic comedic premise (of a gang of Cockney crooks holed up in a deserted monastery off the Cornish coast disguised as monks) is so over-used that one's interest soon flags. Interesting only really in order to ascertain how Barbara Windsor is STILL basically putting in the same performance as when this was made and to show anyone under fifty that the 1960s were definitely NOT about innovation and creativity when it came to the production of much of what passed as 'popular culture' in the first half at least of the decade. Watch and forget.