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This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Blistering performances.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Why, someone must have thought, isn't there a 'crooks anonymous' as you have an alcoholics anonymous as well? That's the premise of this film, in which 'brother' Forsdyke undergoes the program, to win back the heart of his love, Babette la Verne. Forsdyke is forced to go in rehab, to get the criminal instincts out of his veins. He is tortured by booby trapped safes only to look for a cigarette.It is a must-see for fans of British comedy, with a lot of 'I saayyy' and 'sport', witty humor, an unrivalled politeness of the characters and, last but not least, almost invisible sexual innuendo ('You'll get my Christmas present later', says a man when hasty leaving after a kiss).I enjoyed it a lot, thanks to decent comedic acting of Leslie Philips, Wilfird Hyde-White and Stanley Baxter (in a fitting part in which he changes his outfit all the time, as a predecessor of his own TV show that started a year later). Perhaps only Julie Christie, in her first serious role, is a bit of a dissonance. But she would be great in Fahrenheit 451 a couple of years later.Director Ken Annakin made all kinds of films (The Battle of the Bulge, for example), but was really into silly adventure comedies with rather long titles, like Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 hours 11 minutes and Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies, all scripts from Jack Davies, as is also this one. Of course, it is all a bit dated now and then, but sometimes I wonder why this kind of innocent comedy has just died out in this day and age. It is almost impossible nowadays to see a film that is not either totally ludicrous, or over-dramatic. That's why we have this problem today that so many comedies are packed with boring melodrama. Not this one though!

The first half of this film is very funny.Stanley Baxter is the real star.He said in a recent interview that his film career came to an end because the company to whom he was contracted went bust.As usual he pops up in a variety of disguises.The best part is the aversion therapy treatment to stop Leslie Phillips going back to his old ways.Alas the film runs out of steam in the last half.Stealing the money from the department store then putting it back is typical of the farciCal devices used to end films ,utilised by many British comedies of the period.Julie Christie is clearly on her way up the ladder and Leslie Phillips would outlive most of his contemporaries and have a long and distinguished career.

Crooks Anonymous is directed by Ken Annakin and written by Henry Blyth and Jack Davies. It stars Leslie Phillips, Stanley Baxter, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Julie Christie, James Robertson Justice and Pauline Jameson. Music is by Muir Matheson and George Martin and cinematography by Ernest Steward. Plot finds Phillips as a habitual criminal who is desperately trying to go straight for his gorgeous girlfriend (Christie). He enrols at Crooks Anonymous, a secretive organisation run by Hyde-White that uses interesting tactics to wean their clients off the thieve.Out of Anglo-Amalgamated Film Distributors, Crooks Anonymous is the kind of innocuous black and white British comedy that gets in and does its entertaining job without fuss or pointless filler. Cast are most agreeable, the story has the requisite daftness about it, and it's all smiles come the finale. Trick of the narrative is having us the audience be on the side of the thieving bounder, who is wonderfully essayed by the suave Phillips. That he wants to do right by the scrummy Miss Christie (her first year of big screen acting) obviously resonates with the red blooded male members of the audience, but that he is so charming, elegant even when relieving unsuspecting members of the public of their possessions, really has all comers cheering the gentleman cad on! Fun is garnered here from the tactics used by Hyde-White to get Phillips on the straight, methods such as booby trapped safes bring the joy, as does the many guises used by an on form Stanley Baxter. While a flip flop for the Christmas set finale has a delicious ironical flavour to it. There's nothing overtly side-splitting about the film, and definitely there's no raucous-like-screwball histrionics within either, this is just good old enjoyable fare from a production company who had a particularly good track record in the light entertainment department. 7/10

Kleptomaniac (Phillips) wants to marry his girlfriend (Christie) but it's conditional on him going straight. After being tempted to pull off a safe cracking job, he's caught in the act and offered salvation via the benevolent guardian angel society known as "Crooks Anonymous" (when you're tempted to offend, just dial "uncrook" for assistance), led by former thief Wilfrid Hyde-White. Phillips proves to be a willing if troubled case, with guardian angel Stanley Baxter ready to test his honesty with ruses that Phillips routinely fails. But it turns out that not everyone is as rehabilitated as they portray.Novel tale is amusing and Phillips is a likable comedian, ably supported by impressionist Baxter, light leading man Michael Medwin and other British notables; Norman Rossington features prominently as a department store night watchman toward the end of the film, and James Robertson Justice is memorable if brief as the store's ill-tempered owner. Her fans should also enjoy seeing fresh-faced Julie Christie in her film debut.No belly laughs or side-splitting antics, but Baxter's impersonations and the set-ups for which Phillips falls are all capable of coaxing a giggle or two if you're in the right mood.