Writer/director Jim O'Connolly should be well known for two films where the cult status went to someone else: In BERSERK, Joan Crawford gets credit while stop-motion guru Ray Harryhausen and his dinosaurs ruled THE VALLEY OF GWANGI. But O'Connolly's by himself in creating two really neat, tight and entertaining B&W post-noir crime flicks derived from the British b-picture company, Butcher's, in the early/mid 1960's...
The first being THE HI-JACKERS starring Anthony Booth as an independent truck/lorry driver: victim of the titular gang faking accident scenes on the rural roadside and then stealing the cargo: in his case, cases of Johnnie Walker Red...
The essential eye candy is cute-as-a-button ingenue Jacqueline Ellis as a rogue young lady, the likes the truckers deem "Mystery," who Booth picks up at a diner before getting robbed. Their chemistry has the kind of relaxing, lived-in coziness where you want them to hook up, but they're almost too perfectly suited to, too soon...
On the other side are THE HI-JACKERS themselves: you might initially think they're actually highly professional policemen, or even classy college professors on a field trip roadside picnic...
Led by non-violent sophisticated heavy Derek Francis with two thugs from O'Connolly's followup, SMOKESCREEN, Glynn Edwards and David Gregory, they're an eclectic lot, calling the boss "Gov" and, eventually holed up at a rural estate, seem to have all the time in the world... that is, until the ingenue riskily moves in, providing a burst of 11th hour suspense, though more serene than edgy...
This fine little curio is an involving jazz-scored crime flick that, no matter what side's being centered on, moves along with well-timed action sequences blanketed by more intelligent than pulpy bouts of page-turning dialogue.
The first being THE HI-JACKERS starring Anthony Booth as an independent truck/lorry driver: victim of the titular gang faking accident scenes on the rural roadside and then stealing the cargo: in his case, cases of Johnnie Walker Red...
The essential eye candy is cute-as-a-button ingenue Jacqueline Ellis as a rogue young lady, the likes the truckers deem "Mystery," who Booth picks up at a diner before getting robbed. Their chemistry has the kind of relaxing, lived-in coziness where you want them to hook up, but they're almost too perfectly suited to, too soon...
On the other side are THE HI-JACKERS themselves: you might initially think they're actually highly professional policemen, or even classy college professors on a field trip roadside picnic...
Led by non-violent sophisticated heavy Derek Francis with two thugs from O'Connolly's followup, SMOKESCREEN, Glynn Edwards and David Gregory, they're an eclectic lot, calling the boss "Gov" and, eventually holed up at a rural estate, seem to have all the time in the world... that is, until the ingenue riskily moves in, providing a burst of 11th hour suspense, though more serene than edgy...
This fine little curio is an involving jazz-scored crime flick that, no matter what side's being centered on, moves along with well-timed action sequences blanketed by more intelligent than pulpy bouts of page-turning dialogue.