Three Crooked Men

1958 British film by Ernest Morris

Brian Clemens
Eldon Howard

Produced by

Edward J. Danziger
Harry Lee Danziger

StarringGordon JacksonCinematographyJames Wilson (as Jimmy Wilson)Edited byMaurice RootesMusic by

Edwin Astley
Albert Elms

Production
company

Danziger Productions

Distributed byParamount British Pictures (UK)

Release date

October 1958 (1958-10) (UK)

Running time

71 minutesCountryUnited KingdomLanguageEnglish

Three Crooked Men is a 1958 British 'B'^[1] crime film directed by Ernest Morris and starring Gordon Jackson.^[2]^[3] It was written by Brian Clemens and Eldon Howard.

Plot

Three crooks break into a store hoping to gain access to the bank next door. The store keeper has remained in the rear of the store after a drunken fight with his wife, the men take him hostage. A passerby, a bank employee, hears him shout knocks on the front door, tries to help, but he too is captured. The two kidnapped men are dumped in the country eventually getting free and are recognized/arrested as the "wanted men" in news reports. Under questioning the police don't want to believe them as the missing shop owner and missing bank employee seem to have committed the crime. While awaiting court the two men return to the store come across a photo which had been dropped during the break-in and decide their best chance is to track down the thieves themselves.

Cast

Gordon Jackson as Don Wescot
Sarah Lawson as May Wescot
Eric Pohlmann as Masters
Philip Saville as Seppy
Warren Mitchell as Walter Prinn
Michael Goodliffe as shop customer
Michael Mellinger as Vince
Kenneth Edwards as Inspector Wheeler
Frank Sieman as Constable Jason
Peter Bathurst as Mr Bond
Arnold Bell as Mr Brady, the bank manager
Michael Allinson as photographer's Assistant
Len Sharp as Joe, proprietor of café

Critical reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "This film falls between two stools: it builds up some suspense as a crime melodrama; it is occasionally interesting as a character study of two men, Wescot and Prinn, who imagine themselves to be failures, but, as a result of the events in the story, recover their sense of purpose. But the two halves are awkwardly joined, and despite good performances from Gordon Jackson and Warren Mitchell, the long arm of coincidences is sometimes violently wrenched."^[4]

References

^ Chibnall, Steve; McFarlane, Brian (2009). The British 'B' Film. London: BFI/Bloomsbury. p. 93. ISBN 978-1-8445-7319-6.
^ "Three Crooked Men". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 29 February 2024.
^ "Three Crooked Men". BFI. Archived from the original on 13 July 2012.
^ "Three Crooked Men". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 25 (288): 145. 1 January 1958 – via ProQuest.