When Richard Johnson gets released from jail, he vows to go straight. However, he's in a Hollywood movie and therefore will get sucked back into a life of crime. He gets a regular job as a maintenance man in a bank, and he thinks everything's turning around for him. The ladies love him and he's keeping his nose clean. David Niven, though, has other ideas. The Niv is a mob kingpin who wants to use Richard's robbery skills to his own advantage. He does work in a bank, after all!
I sat through this movie for love of The Niv, but it really wasn't his movie. If you're not rooting for Richard Johnson, you're not going to care about the characters or the story. Elke Sommer is pretty superfluous, and frankly, so is The Niv. There was no reason to attract such an A-tier actor to the cast, and to put him in a one-dimensional role as "the bad guy". Poor Niv had nothing to do but look menacing, and with his big blue eyes, he didn't do it very well. Let's remember him in his prime, not in the years before he became tragically ill.
I sat through this movie for love of The Niv, but it really wasn't his movie. If you're not rooting for Richard Johnson, you're not going to care about the characters or the story. Elke Sommer is pretty superfluous, and frankly, so is The Niv. There was no reason to attract such an A-tier actor to the cast, and to put him in a one-dimensional role as "the bad guy". Poor Niv had nothing to do but look menacing, and with his big blue eyes, he didn't do it very well. Let's remember him in his prime, not in the years before he became tragically ill.