Le casse de Berkeley Square

I provided location services on the this film every Sunday we would shoot in London's Berkeley Square. David Niven ever the gentleman thoroughly enjoyed the role, sadly to be his last. we had a moment of panic when a trunk load of fake Krugerrands (cast for the film..) tipped down a storm drain.

Imagine frantic crew opening all the drains to recover every last one. If you know and love London you'll love this comedy romp - also starts Richard Jordan who sadly died from a brain tumour. A good film, great crew ,superb cast. look for the current stars of coronation street then playing crowd scenes or extras.The car lot and Ivan's retail enterprises were all shot in west London, Chiswick the entire shopping parade and the American used car lot were dressed overnight, the car lot is still there as are the shops. A restaurant was suddenly turned into a funeral parlour. If you see the film on the listings make an effort to see it! By the way Sally Harrison the Bank receptionist was married to the production designer Tony Curtis..

April 2007 Just thought I would add a few extra comments on locations:

Pub: just off Berkeley Square Elke Sommers Cottage: in back Road alongide Twickenham Film Studios Ivans Used Car Lot: along Chiswick High Street and all shop locations near roundabout. Workshops (converting armoured vans)Factory on roundabout opposite Fullers Brewery Jail (see workshops above) Telephone box see Elke Sommers cottage ( it was the wooden studio prop box used in many films, look for the lighting cable at gound level and the wood hinges on the door!!! Computer room Honeywells near Olympia Graveyard - Chiswick - Grave just outside the boundary on common land Bank interiors, ceiling void and strongroom :Twickenham studios

And just to add David Niven ever the gentleman, joked and mixed with the crew, extras and so on......Niven would dine in the Connaught hotel bu join the crew for coffee!

When Pinky, a qualified electrician, is released from prison, his parole officer has found him a job working at a big city bank. When some of the crime underworld from his past learn of his position they plan to exploit it and rob the bank. Pinky is at first horrified because he really wants to go straight, but when a twist of fate happens Pinky begins to think one shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Also known as The Mayfair Bank Caper {amongst others!}, this is a hugely enjoyable piece that is quintessential 1970s. London and all it's highly dubious fashions are lit up like a Christmas tree in Ralph Thomas and Guy Elmes' cunningly crafty caper. If the viewer can accept David Niven as an aged crime lord of some evility {it's not easy i can tell you}, then A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square could well surprise you. The actors aren't pulling up any trees for sure, but it's really not hurting the picture at all, it has an honest fun quality that is never less than entertaining. The score and soundtrack is perhaps guilty of over jollification during the dramatic criminal moments, but it's a minor complaint to leave me thinking this is an under seen British gem.

Richard Jordan takes the lead role of Pinky (obviously hoping to lure in American viewers}, 70s heart throb Oliver Tobias {a mass of hair} is in there to keep the ladies interested, whilst the blokes get the pleasurable sight of Elke Sommer and her delightful legs for company. Moving along at a decent enough clip and containing a seriously rewarding finale, A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square deserves far better than the paltry 5.7 rating here on IMDb, but just how many people have seen it i wonder?, hmm, go on give it a go if you the chance, it's good stuff. 7/10

Delightful! It never pretends to be a masterpiece, but it's a mini-gem of late-Seventies British comedy. Given that the producers wanted to sell it abroad, it stars an American (the late character actor Richard Jordan), but at least he isn't the usual dull Hollywood hunk type. Surrounding him is the cream of British character acting talent, led by a wonderfully waspish and superior David Niven.

Niven's Ivan the Terrible naturally gets the best one liners and all the best reaction shots. He also manages to be surprisingly menacing and intimidatingly dangerous. The moment in the snooker club when he drops the charming facade and threatens Richard Jordan will come as a shock to those viewers who think of Niven as being only a light drawing-room comedy star. He is filled with genuine power and ruthlessness as we see all at once how Ivan earned his nickname. All the more surprising given how ill Niven was at the time. Shortly after filming this production he lost his powers of speech to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (known as Lou Gehrig's disease). This is the last picture Niven made where you can hear his own voice, being dubbed thereafter by the comic impressionist Sid Little.

Alongside him you can spot numerous familiar faces from Seventies cinema and television. Elke Sommer (flashing her breasts in true Seventies era politically incorrect bimbo mode), Oliver Tobias, Michael Angelis, Brian Croucher, Richard Johnson, John Rhys-Davies, Davy Kaye etc, etc. Davy Kaye gets one of the biggest laughs as he holds up a security guard caught making a phone call to the old UK analogue vinyl telephone music service Dial-A-Disc. "Who you ringing?!....Bloody Dial-A-Disc! You gormless git!"

Great shots of London street locations; making the film a period patina time capsule of red phone boxes with chunky round-dial manual handsets, black cabs driven by "Cor blimey, gov!" cockneys, and ladies and gents modelling all manner of deeply dodgy late-Seventies retro leisure-wear and hair styles.

Highly entertaining, quaintly dated in its fashions and attitudes, and the stuff of late night cult viewing. Perfect to watch at midnight after the pubs have shut; if you're of a certain age, are feeling a touch nostalgic; and have always wanted to see David Niven swanning about inside a branch of McDonalds, silently intimidating an American via the deployment of a retractable telescope!

Just ingenious enough to be plausible and still a lot of fun, this is a pure slice of the 1970s (Even the cops need haircuts badly!). Shot in and around London, the plot of the American ex-con who tries going straight but finds himself sent as an electrician to a bank in Mayfair, and then has the screws put on by crime lord David Niven, and finds himself plotting the crime of the century is well-handled.

I liked its simplicity and even innocence, it harks back to a time when caper films where just that, a caper, and violence wasn't a part of the deal.

All in all you could do a lot worse than watch this: it has enough twists and turns to give it some oomph and a cast that obviously had fun making it.

Nicely made and watchable.

Like Michael Corleone Richard Jordan keeps trying to go straight in A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square and they keep dragging him back in again. But unlike Corleone, Jordan after a while likes the idea of making that easy tax free money. And with his skill he actually does make robbery look easy.

Jordan plays an American expatriate who gets training as an electrician while serving a sentence in Great Britain. His brain dead parole officer gets him assigned to work in a bank on their wiring. Does that ever interest criminal mastermind David Niven who was in prison with Jordan.

He forces Jordan to work with him and after a while not much force is needed. But the inevitable problems do come up and it's what happens to Niven and Jordan and their criminal gang that is the basis for this semi-lighthearted caper film.

Gloria Grahame has one of her last roles as Jordan's mother and the very last performance of Hugh Griffith is in this film. Griffith plays a pawnbroker and Jordan buys a telescope from him. What he does with the telescope I can't reveal, but it does show just how insecure that bank was for all their bragging about their security.

The title of course is based on the famous British pop song of the Thirties which a few American artists like Bing Crosby managed to record as well. The song is heard a few times, but the last bank heisted is in London's Berkeley Square and what do nightingale's do, but sing.

This is a nice caper film, somewhat reminiscent of The Brink's Job with a British touch.