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Fresh and Exciting

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

THE CRIMINAL is another star vehicle for the continually underrated Stanley Baker, an actor who enlivened every film in which he appeared. This one's a low key prison drama for the most part, in which Baker plays a robber who hides some loot in a field but soon finds himself pursued by his fellow gang members desperate to get their hands on the stolen goods. The film is divided into two parts, with the realistic depiction of the mundanity and brutality of prison life contrasting with more familiar criminal behaviour on the outside. It's not the most exciting film in existence, only really picking up in the last twenty minutes or so, but a finely-judged cast of character actors see it through. Highlights include a suave Sam Wanamaker as the fixer, Patrick Magee as a nervy prison guard, and plenty of others including Noel Willman and Kenneth Cope.

The blacklisted Joseph Losey whose loss to the American cinema was the United Kingdom's gain took his knowledge of American prison films to fashion this gem. Starring in Concrete Jungle is the premier British tough guy Stanley Baker in a role that in America, Humphrey Bogart might have been given first crack at.Whoever said there was no honor among thieves must have run with Baker's mob. When we meet him, he's a day away from his release from one jail sentence, but not until some prison justice is meted out to a newly arriving Patrick Magee with whom Baker has a grudge over a previous job. No sooner is Baker out than he's back in a nice caper concerning the robbery of a racetrack. But thieves being what they are somebody rats and Baker's back in stir. But not before he's buried the loot and doesn't tell anyone, the same thing he was mad at Magee for.It's a scurvy lot Baker has for friends, I haven't seen this many bad people hold a viewer's interest without there being any redeeming good people in a film since I first saw Goodfellas. But like Goodfellas there is something fascinating about Baker and the whole crew, people like Sam Wanamaker, Gregoire Aslan, etc. Even the cops like Laurence Naismith aren't especially heroic. Naismith admits as much, he's just got a well developed system of stool pigeons which any cop worth his badge has.Baker really dominates the film, the United Kingdom hasn't produced an actor like him since. Concrete Jungle is a classic example of his tough guy appeal and a great introduction to him.And you'll love Cleo Laine's singing of A Thieving Boy at the beginning and end of the film.

Joseph Losey's C.V. was nothing if not eclectic.Once considered by some critics as a major force in British Cinema,he can,with hindsight ,be seen to have been following trends rather than creating them for most of his career.Nonetheless,his films were,as a rule,recognisably the work of a considerable artist,albeit one working within the limits imposed by the studios,and within clearly defined genres. He was involved in film-making for 45 years,right up to his death in 1984. Blacklisted by the H.U.A.C.,Mr Losey brought a welcome dash of verve and inmagination to a fairly moribund British Film Industry. He could take a straightforward prison movie like "The Criminal" - destined to be a pot-boiler in the hands of many an English hack director - and turn it into a rather remarkable work. The British cannot do crime films.I know we think we can,and we certainly make enough of them,but the results give lie to the proverb that practise makes perfect.It's not enough to fill the screen with snarling professional Cockneys with tattooed fingers like bunches of sausages spouting rhyming - slang never heard outside of a script writer's study in Islington.Watch Britpop gangster films like"Lock,stock etc" or "Essex Boys" and you can scarcely hear the dialogue for laughter and the more ludicrously violent the film gets the more the audience laughs."The Criminal" is not noticeably risible. There is violence,but it is not comic book violence,it is the sort of violence that leaves it's victims scarred physically and mentally. There is real menace.Mr Stanley Baker and Mr Sam Wanamaker are hard men. Compared to them Mr Sean Bean is a pussycat,Mr Vinnie Jones a dilettante. It is not so much a film noir as a film gris,the exteriors shot in bright light,softening the contrast whilst retaining pin-sharp focusing.These shadings of grey reflect the moral ambivalence of the main characters.Only the truly unpleasant P.O. Barrow,played with hissing relish by Mr Patrick Magee,is shot in high contrast. Mr Stanley Baker is very convincing as a major criminal,hardly surprising when you consider he had been known to move in the same social circles as some of London's biggest villains.He makes no unnecessary gestures,remains aloof from his fellow prisoners,truly a man apart.You just know he won't be taking up those courses in basket weaving. The plot - such as it is - revolves around a "Thieves fall out" scenario familiar to moviegoers since the first train robber galloped across the flickering screen.It's familiarity doesn't matter,its what Mr Losey does with it that counts,after all,"Romeo and Juliet" wasn't exactly state of the art cutting edge audience challenging stuff when Shakespeare first got hold of it. Released at a time when British films were just about to enjoy a short - lived renaissance,"The Criminal" ended up being trampled under the feet of critics lavishing excessive praise on a succession of flat cap and whippet sagas that eventually disappeared up their own outdoor privy. Viewed at a distance of 45 years,Mr Wanamaker crossing the street in his camelhair coat is an image that will remain long after the last crumpled Woodbine is ground out in an overflowing ashtray in a smoke - filled changing room before the poor exploited hero runs out - coughing to play football/rugby league/pigeon racing in front of an audience of seven men and a dog - probably a whippet.

Joseph Losey does a superb job of directing cinema-verite'-style from start to finish. From the moment Cleo Laine sings Thieving Boy over the opening credits, I knew I was in for a special experience. Stanley Baker spent a career delivering some of the most haunting criminal characterizations of all time, and this is one of his all-time best. Patrick Magee is memorable in a minor supporting role. An incredible gritty film.