The Gelignite Gang (1956)

User Rating:

5.8/10   

Directors:

Terence Fisher
Francis Searle

Writer:

Brandon Fleming (writer)

Release Date:

April 1956 (USA)

Genre:

Thriller | Crime | Drama

Tagline:

It Explodes and Blasts the Lid Off a Ruthless Underworld!

Plot:

Insurance investigator Jimmy Baxter searches for a gang of jewel robbers. His fiancée Sally does some sleuthing on her own and finds valuable clues...

Cast

Wayne Morris	...	Jimmy Baxter
Sandra Dorne	...	Sally Morton
Patrick Holt	...	John Rutherford
Eric Pohlmann	...	Mr. Popoulos ("Populace")
Arthur Young	...	"Pop" Scobie
Lloyd Lamble	...	Detective-Inspector Felby
James Kenney	...	Chris Chapman
Hugh Miller	...	Mr. Crosby
Bertha Russell	...	Chapman's mother
Leigh Crutchley	...	Hopman, thug
Monti DeLyle	...	Barton, aka Adolph Bergmann
Tony Doonan	...	Unidentifed Role [Script Name: Jagar]
Bernadette Milnes	...	Kay, Chapman's girl
Simone Silva	...	Nightclub singer
Mark Daly	...	1st Watchman

Also Known As:

The Dynamiters (USA)

Runtime:

74 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

Brighton, East Sussex, England, UK

Company:

Cybex Film Productions Ltd.

Neat little British crime thriller with a superb twist ending

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This starts off slowly but gradually builds into a neat, satisfactory thriller. A notorious gang are cracking safes across London and an insurance company has put up a £2,000 reward for any information. One of the investigators, Baxter (Wayne Morris), tries to gain information from an underworld contact Mr Popoulus (or as Baxter insists on calling him 'Mr 'Populace') which proves to be a red herring. Meanwhile Baxter's girlfriend and secretary, Sally Morton (the excellent Sandra Dorne, proving that there was more to her than gangster's molls and good-time girls) uncovers some clues to the gang's identity when she spots a street band playing outside the jeweller's workshop that's just been robbed. This eventually leads to a back street pawnbroker who appears to be operating the gelignite gang but the identity of the real 'Mr G' isn't revealed until a gripping climax in a warehouse at the docks. A sub plot involving a young jeweller's assistant borrowing items from his employers to pawn for cash distracts from the central story but it all develops quite realistically. There are some dodgy moments however such as the scene where Baxter asks his secretary on a date by dictating it to her as a letter, and there is the obligatory night club sequence with the song 'Soho Mambo' (which is as bad as it sounds) sung by now-forgotten model/actress Simone Silva who died tragically a few years later from a stroke at the age of 29. Also it's unrealistic that the street-wise jewelery clerk Chapman (James Kenney) is willing to tell all he knows about the robbery to Baxter for a mere fiver when the reward was £2,000. The credits reveal the film was made in 1954 at The Brighton Film Studios (not in Southall) and so presumably on location in Brighton.