Tangy post-War British 'Spiv' movie (a cycle of films with roots in 30s American Gangster movies, featuring characters profiting from wartime rationing in a similar fashion to 30s bootleggers, but not so clearly glamorised as their Stateside equivalents). Directed by Edmond T. Greville (BEAT GIRL aka WILD FOR KICKS), and adapted from a stage play, this features Carole Landis (in one of her final roles) as nosy reporter Linda Medbury who, together with her ex-commando boyfriend Jumbo Hoyle (played by Derek Farr), gets on the trail of a gang of post-war black marketeers headed by Soho nightclub owner Sugiani, played by Joseph Calleia (whose role was based on a real-life Post-war London criminal). This gets them mixed up with London 'Spiv' Bar Gorman, played by Nigel Patrick, whose slangy, comic performance almost overshadows the surrounding film. Imaginatively shot, speedily paced, and ripe with post-War vernacular and the requisite criminal dust-ups (primarily involving the good guys' recruited gang of boxers, market porters, and cab drivers versus the low-life criminals), this is an entertaining slice of British crime and deserves to be better known, as it's worthy of a place alongside such noted post-War British crime movies as BRIGHTON ROCK and NIGHT AND THE CITY. Check it out, if you get the chance.
Review of The Silk Noose
