The Gentle Trap

As others have already said, this is a pretty average Butcher's B-movie from the time. A thin plot and average production values here, so don't watch it with any high expectations, because you will almost certainly be disappointed.

Looking at it now, it is a different (and mostly rather drab) world. Arguably the most exotic thing in the movie is the (most) bad guy's car which is (I think) a (Lincoln) Continental MkIII or MkIV from 1958 or 1959. Coming from the era in American car design when 'bigger was always better' this was one of the largest cars ever built. With the (optional) spare wheel holder at the back it would have been over twenty feet long! Probably it belonged to the producer or something and they used it to add glamour to the film; it needed all the help it could get, but it wasn't enough....

I taped The Gentle Trap recently when BBC2 screened it during the early hours and despite reading bad reviews, I thought I'd see what it was like.

A pair of burglars break into a jewellery shop and pinch some diamonds but as they are making their getaway, some gangsters ambush them. One of the pair goes on the run from the police and gang leader. He stays with two sisters and when one of them reports him, he goes on the run once again with the other sister, with the police on their trail. They catch up with them on a farm and he is caught after a shoot out at the end.

The cast is lead by Spencer Teakle and he is joined by Felicity Young and Martin Benson.

Though certainly not brilliant, The Gentle Trap is watchable. The UK made quite a few of these low budget crime dramas in the 1950's and 1960's.

Rating: 2 stars out of 5.

Charles Saunders directs yet another B pic, this time from quick release and fittingly named Butchers Distributors, who pretty much butchered acting, editing, stunts and all the small components that make for memorable cinema.

The screenplay by to me unknown Brock Williams seems to plagiarize all manner of other B pics of the time, but at least dialogue has its moments, especially when beautiful Dorinda Stevens appears on screen as Mary, all deception and unscrupulous desire to score a percentage of the heist's proceeds. Felicity Young plays her principled sister, who falls in love and ultimately gets her man, the locksmith turned robber at the beginning of the pic, a 3' 22" voiceless sequence that may have been inspired by France's RIFIFI, which had come out 5 years earlier, and which is easily the most accomplished and better finished part of this flick, with a great piece of music as background.

Sadly, the thieving locksmith, played by - I had never heard of him - one Spencer Teakle, failed to tickle me. The man cannot seem to get a meaningful expression, and over the course of this thankfully short movie keeps getting black eyes, and all manner of facial bruises. Well, at least he tickles the lovely Felicity, and together they tie up one of top villain Martin Benson's sidekicks in an unintentionally laughable sequence. The tying of hands and feet is so minimal that a child would have gotten out of it in a minute, and the gagging with a facial powder ball should have killed the man just with all particles that would have filled his throat.

Photography, apart from that remarkable initial sequence as the credits roll down, is run of the mill.

Average but 56' won't waste too much of your time.

Butcher's Film releases tend to be denigrated but for the budgets and time the producers had, their films had a interesting style. I especially like them and the Edgar Wallace Mysteries for the attractive and capable actresses that populated the casts, more enjoyable to watch than any number of contemporary actresses working today. The writer does blow it with a poor climax about a bungling safecracker sidetracked with sexy girl problems, notably three of them (tart Dorinda Stevens, nice girl Felicity Young, cheater Dawn Brooks). Martin Benson is the nervous nightclub owner/mobster looking to steal Spencer Teakle's swag. Benson was the friendly alien in Cosmic Monsters and the unfortunate Mr. Solo in Goldfinger. He always brought gravitas to the films he did.

The title suggests a romantic comedy, but it generally proves yet another bleak, nihilistic little British crime film set in pre-swinging London in which almost everyone is looking after number one while an extremely unendearing petty crook finds himself out of his depth and as usual learns that Crime Does Not Pay.