A gang of criminals, Turpin (Stanley Baker), Fenner (Tom Bell) and Swavek (Helmut Schmid) plot to steal an army payroll worth £250,000 meant for soldiers serving in the Middle East. To this end they plan to impersonate soldiers and infiltrate an army camp using an old military vehicle. When the big day comes, they know that whatever happens there can be no turning back. Either they will pull it off and enjoy a life of vast wealth or it could go disastrously wrong and they will spend the rest of their lives in prison or worse. But what will fate decide for them?
A criminally underappreciated film, which received positive reviews from the critics at the time but failed to make much of an impact at the box office. Seen today it emerges as a pacy, exciting and very suspenseful heist thriller. The tension starts off very moderately; but it gradually builds up causing us to grip the arms of our seats tighter and tighter as a series of events occur that threaten to compromise the success of the gang's raid. For instance, having managed to convince everybody at the army base that they are regular soldiers, they find themselves being ordered into the medical centre to have inoculations since the officers there are being sent to serve their country abroad. There is also a really funny scene in which Tom Bell's Fenner gets purloined by Patrick Magee's RSM Hicks to a dirty job of cleaning pots and pans. Here, he falls foul of a supervising sergeant who takes pleasure in browbeating officers who are below his rank and Fenner retaliates by upsetting the table holding the pans he is cleaning and shouting a rude insult. This too threatens the success of the gang's plans because Fenner has drawn attention to himself since orders are given to find him so he can face disciplinary action. The tension finally reaches fever pitch as they finally succeed in raiding the chief cashier's office; creating a diversionary fire, blowing the safe open and carrying the loot out on a stretcher holding a wounded officer right under the noses of the camp's high command amid all the commotion. But, as they plan to slip out of the base in their military vehicle by sabotaging a breakdown truck and joining a departing convoy of arms, the military top brass begin to sort of see through all the ruses the gang has laid to make it appear an outside job. But they haven't, as yet, quite fitted all the pieces of the puzzle together to prove it for sure. Have Turpin and his mates pulled off the crime of the century, or will they be proven to have been too clever for their own good?
Cleverly directed by Cliff Owen, a film maker whose talents never really got the recognition they deserved. Here he displays a proficiency for the thriller genre (check out his debut feature, the crime 'B' -pic Offbeat) keeping the action moving at a cracking pace and artfully constructing mounting tension that culminates in a skilfully staged and fiery climax that will leave you stunned. Stanley Baker, Tom Bell and Helmut Schmid all deserve glowing reviews as the crooks attempting to pull off the final and biggest job of their lives while lots of unexpected people crop up in the supporting cast; including Michael Robbins, Rodney Bewes and Fulton McKay. Oh, and I think I spotted Geoffrey Palmer is in there somewhere too.
Happily A Prize Of Arms is now readily available on DVD for a new generation of fans to enjoy - it is something that all fans of good thrillers and of British cinema cannot afford to miss.
A criminally underappreciated film, which received positive reviews from the critics at the time but failed to make much of an impact at the box office. Seen today it emerges as a pacy, exciting and very suspenseful heist thriller. The tension starts off very moderately; but it gradually builds up causing us to grip the arms of our seats tighter and tighter as a series of events occur that threaten to compromise the success of the gang's raid. For instance, having managed to convince everybody at the army base that they are regular soldiers, they find themselves being ordered into the medical centre to have inoculations since the officers there are being sent to serve their country abroad. There is also a really funny scene in which Tom Bell's Fenner gets purloined by Patrick Magee's RSM Hicks to a dirty job of cleaning pots and pans. Here, he falls foul of a supervising sergeant who takes pleasure in browbeating officers who are below his rank and Fenner retaliates by upsetting the table holding the pans he is cleaning and shouting a rude insult. This too threatens the success of the gang's plans because Fenner has drawn attention to himself since orders are given to find him so he can face disciplinary action. The tension finally reaches fever pitch as they finally succeed in raiding the chief cashier's office; creating a diversionary fire, blowing the safe open and carrying the loot out on a stretcher holding a wounded officer right under the noses of the camp's high command amid all the commotion. But, as they plan to slip out of the base in their military vehicle by sabotaging a breakdown truck and joining a departing convoy of arms, the military top brass begin to sort of see through all the ruses the gang has laid to make it appear an outside job. But they haven't, as yet, quite fitted all the pieces of the puzzle together to prove it for sure. Have Turpin and his mates pulled off the crime of the century, or will they be proven to have been too clever for their own good?
Cleverly directed by Cliff Owen, a film maker whose talents never really got the recognition they deserved. Here he displays a proficiency for the thriller genre (check out his debut feature, the crime 'B' -pic Offbeat) keeping the action moving at a cracking pace and artfully constructing mounting tension that culminates in a skilfully staged and fiery climax that will leave you stunned. Stanley Baker, Tom Bell and Helmut Schmid all deserve glowing reviews as the crooks attempting to pull off the final and biggest job of their lives while lots of unexpected people crop up in the supporting cast; including Michael Robbins, Rodney Bewes and Fulton McKay. Oh, and I think I spotted Geoffrey Palmer is in there somewhere too.
Happily A Prize Of Arms is now readily available on DVD for a new generation of fans to enjoy - it is something that all fans of good thrillers and of British cinema cannot afford to miss.