The Dynamiters (1956) User Reviews

Better than you'd expect

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 2 October 2015]

THE GELIGNITE GANG is a fast-paced British B-picture from prolific director Francis Searle, who made tons of these low budget quota quickies for a couple of decades from the 1940s to the 1960s. The fun title hints at the plot of a sometimes intense cops-and-robbers flick in which an American insurance investigator helps police to search for members of a criminal gang who use explosives to commit their robberies.

Unlike a lot of similar fare from Butcher's Films and the like, THE GELIGNITE GANG doesn't hang around and offers plenty of incident to keep viewers engaged. The imported American star, Wayne Morris, blusters his way through a cast of well-drawn characters, including a young thief whose run-ins with the gang lead to his eventual downfall. The film cleverly plays up a murder mystery angle to the story, keeping you guessing as to the identity of the chief villain, while at the same time keeping the action and suspense bubbling along. It's a B-picture throughout, but a good one.

Neat little British crime thriller with a superb twist ending

[last-picture-show · 7/10 · 21 July 2007]

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.

They call it dynamite in the USA

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 13 March 2019]

As so many did from the USA Wayne Morris took work over in the United Kingdom because roles were not forthcoming over here. And British films wanted to have that American name to insure box office abroad.

Morris is with Anglo-American Insurance and the company insured some jewels that the Gelignite Gang took. So named because they work with explosives in blowing up safes. The gang seems to operate in and around Eric Pohlman's nightclub. Pohlman is a mysterious figure and a few years earlier Sidney Greenstreet would have fitted the role perfectly.

This gang seems to pop out of nowhere and go back into the scenery without a trace. Sandra Dorne who Morris is dating and who also works for the insurance company is the one who figures out how they do it. Talk about hiding in plain sight.

Acting honors go to young James Kenney a young punk who gets in way over his head with this crowd.

The Gelignite Gang is a good British noir film and the ensemble cast functions well.

A highly enjoyable British crime thriller b-pic.

[jamesraeburn2003 · 27 May 2010]

A private investigator called Jimmy Baxter (Wayne Morris) of Anglo American Investigations is on the trail of a gang of ruthless safe breakers known as The Gelignite Gang. They are lead by the mysterious Mr G but his identity is a closely guarded secret and even the foot soldiers who do all his dirty work have no idea who he is. Baxter visits The Green Dragon Club in Soho, which is managed by the shifty Popoulos (Eric Pohlmann) who is switched on about London's underworld. He warns Baxter to drop the case using little hints like "You like to live pleasantly, how would you like to go on living pleasantly?" Baxter's firm has put up a two-thousand-pound reward for information about the gang and later that day, Barton (Monti DeLyle), the head waiter at The Green Dragon Club enters a call box and calls Baxter to tip him off about the gang. But before he can say anything he is shot dead. That night, Baxter takes his young secretary, Sally Morton (Sandra Dorne), to the club for dinner. When he leaves Popoulos says "I hear that the South of France is very nice at this time year" as another hint to suggest that he should back off. When Baxter arrives home we see a hoodlum in a phone box taking instructions from his boss, "..just enough to make him want to take a holiday, right" and the private detective narrowly avoids being clobbered outside his flat. As a result of this incident and a visit from Popoulos, Baxter's boss, Mark Rutherford (Patrick Holt), tries to take Baxter off the case but he refuses vowing to go it alone. In addition, Popoulos has arranged to have one of his men follow Baxter everywhere he goes. Meanwhile, Hartford's jewellers where Sally happens to be having alterations made to a ring, have just taken on Lady Wilshaw's ten-thousand-pound diamond tiara to have the stones reset while she takes a holiday in the South of France and the young assistant at the shop, Chapman, a gambler heavily in debt, seems inordinately interested in its value. It transpires that Chapman has been using items of value from the shop to pawn when he has been in financial trouble. He visits Scobie (Arthur Young), a local pawnbroker, whom he does business with and tells him about Lady Wilshaw's diamond tiara and its considerable value. Hartford's is then raided by the gang and a watchman is shot dead. Sally turns detective when she spots something suspicious about a seemingly harmless band of busking musicians playing in the street near the jewellery shop. She follows them and sees the musicians go into Scobie's shop. Sally goes in on the pretext of pawning her watch but Scobie is not fooled and has one of his thugs follow her. Meanwhile, Chapman, in the hope of getting some money approaches Baxter with information on the gang. They are interrupted by an excited Sally who tells Baxter everything in young Chapman's presence. Chapman tries to blackmail Scobie for a thousand pounds but the pawnbroker shoots him. Baxter phones the police informing them that the gang are in the pawnbrokers shop. When the gang realise that the police have been tipped off they set fire to the shop and flee while Scobie has already taken the money and fled leaving his accomplices to take the blame. But who is the elusive Mr G? Is it Popoulos who seems to be informed about everything connected with Baxter's investigations or is it somebody who Baxter would least have suspected?

A highly enjoyable British b-pic crime thriller from director Francis Searle who made scores of these low budget quota quickies from the late forties right up until their demise in the early sixties. One of this film's greatest strengths is Brandon Fleming's screenplay, which actually succeeds in transcending a formulaic plot by keeping you guessing and guessing wrongly as to the identity of Mr G right up until the climax where it delivers a genuinely surprising twist in the tale. No I will not give it away but I shall confine myself to say that who I thought was Mr G turned out not to be. There is an amusing set piece in which the gang take to the streets posing as busking musicians in the vicinity of the jewellery shop raid. In order to alert their accomplices of any danger they change their tempo from slow to fast and from fast to slow again when the danger has passed signifying that all is clear. Performances are good from the entire cast and trivia buffs will recognise Eric Pohlmann, the guy who voiced the unseen Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the early James Bond movies. Wayne Morris as the dogged private eye is the imported American leading man, which was common practice in b-pics to improve their chances of getting distribution in the States. If the film is let down it is by the rather uninspired direction that shows especially in the action scenes such as the shoot out at the pawnbrokers shop, which fails to generate much in the way of suspense. The other bad point is the appalling club number, Soho Mambo, sung by Simone Silva at The Green Dragon Club. There is a cracking moment here where Chapman's girlfriend applauds loudly at the end with cries of "bravo". Chapman stops her saying "Not so loud people will hear" and one wonders if that was out of embarrassment of sitting with somebody who would applaud to such a poor song. But those faults aside, The Gelignite Gang, is still streets ahead of many other British b-pics (and there were lots of them in those days) and if you get the opportunity to see it, it is certainly worth the trouble.

Unusual plot.

[plan99 · 7/10 · 28 February 2021]

Better than Crooked Sky which also starred the wide shouldered US detective of this film. The ploy employed by the gang to avoid detection was novel and overall this is worth watching.

"What Use is Money to a Dead Man...?"

[richardchatten · 4/10 · 7 October 2019]

Arthur Young's last film role is also one of his showiest; while Sandra Dorne and Eric Pohlmann are both cast against type as respectively a sleuthing Good Girl (who both Patrick Holt & Wayne Morris hit on with very contrasting degrees of success) and an honest upholder of the law (that he didn't have his usual 'foreign' moustache was probably a clue in Pohlmann's case); while the true identities of the villains are in one case quite interesting, but in the case of the latter an absolutely absurd attempt at a final 'twist'.

The gang themselves sure are a mean-looking bunch, but most of the film consists of anodyne chatter about their activities rather than actually showing it; while the unnecessary violence they carry out during one of the few jobs that we do see is an old narrative trick to turn larceny into a capital offence, and thus raise the stakes (not that anyone actually survives to face the noose).

Good Until the Last Scene

[boblipton · 5/10 · 11 May 2017]

Anglo-American Investigations consists of Wayne Morris, Patrick Holt and secretary Sandra Dorne, whom both of the men are trying to date. An insurance company has hired them to investigate a gang of jewel thieves who like to blow open safes. Some one who calls in a tip for a two-thousand-pound reward gets shot just before he can say anything useful.

This is a pretty good movie -- at least until the final twist -- as we get to watch Morris, Miss Dorne and the police investigate, each on a separate track. We also watch James Kenney and his interactions with a pawn-shop man. All roads lead to the same place, with some nice clues scattered for the observant viewer.

The Brighton setting also helps. Although the movie never rises above Quota Quickie (or American B; it was released simultaneously in both markets) level, the competent acting by all hands makes this watchable throughout.

A tightly wired, genuinely exciting crime thriller from talented film-makers Francis Searle, and Terence Fisher!

[Weirdling_Wolf · 8/10 · 9 October 2021]

In this tightly wired, genuinely exciting crime thriller from talented film-makers Francis Searle, and Terence Fisher a series of audaciously mounted, highly lucrative robberies have rocked the nation's Capital, sending the tittle-tatling tabloids into a fear-feeding frenzy, since these deadly efficient, wholly nefarious safe crackers remain at large, confounding the stalwart efforts of world renowned crime-busters Scotland Yard. Charismatic Pulp Fiction archetype, the burly, piston-fisted Insurance investigator Mr. Baxter (Wayne Morris) who so manfully plunges himself into this murderous vortex of vainglorious villainy all too soon finds himself a marked man, as the mercenary members of the altogether dastardly gelignite gang continue to ply their explosive trade, with nary a thought for any of the poor souls caught in the incendiary aftermath! This is a fabulously short-fused, fast-paced, safe-crackingly lean an' mean B-Thriller from true masters of the form, with a worthy cast of comfortably familiar faces, including avuncular, ubiquitous rotund thug-for-hire Eric Pohlman, with some equally nice work from popular actor Patrick Holt, and another witheringly bright and breezy, head-spinningly delicious turn from platinum B-Movie bombshell Sandra Dorne. 'The Gelignite Gang' is a British B-Movie blast from the past that still delivers some slam-bang entertainment, and it's 'safe' to say the sure-footed directors Searle & Fisher have generously infused the super-heated ingredients with some appropriately volatile ingredients!

Nicely done UK Programmer

[gordonl56 · 8/10 · 27 June 2014]

In this one, we have Wayne Morris playing a private investigator. Right now he is on a case involving a gang of safe-crackers. They hit high end jewellers and use dynamite to gain access. The insurance company has offered a 2000 pound reward for info on the robberies.

The gang hits a shop, takes the goods, then they disappear. The police are stumped and always seem two steps behind. They think the gang must have a source feeding them inside info. Morris is looking for the leader of the gang, a man who goes by the moniker, "Mister G".

Morris visits Eric Pohlmann. Pohlmann, a shady club owner is the man to see about local criminal activity. Pohlmann tells Morris to back off on his investigation. The people he is looking for don't play nice Pohlmann tells him.

Back to the office Morris goes where he is greeted by secretary, Sandra Dorne. Morris and Dorne have quietly been seeing each other away from the office. Morris hits the office of his boss, Patrick Holt. Holt says they have plenty of work without the robbery case.

A phone call interrupts. A man, Monti DeLyle, has some info on the robberies and is the reward still on. As DeLyle starts with the info he is shot dead.

Morris knows exactly what the sound was and hangs up the phone. He tells Holt that there is no way he is quitting the case.

That evening Morris takes Dorne for drinks at the club again. There he discovers that the head-waiter had been DeLyle. Owner, Pohlmann, again warns Morris to back off or face the music.

Morris and Dorne leave the club after a few drinks and Morris drops Dorne off. Morris heads home, parks, and heads for his door. He reaches his door and spots a man hiding in the shadows. The man steps out ready to apply a bit of lead pipe to Morris's head. Morris manages to defend himself without damage.

The next day Pohlmann pays Patrick Holt a visit. He had best pull his boy Morris of the case. Holt tries again to have Morris quit the case. Morris, however, has no intention of letting it go.

As this is all happening, James Kenney, a clerk at an up-scale jewellers, is at the local pawn shop. He has a high maintenance girlfriend and needs a loan. Kenney has lifted a small diamond ring from work which he offers the pawnbroker, Arthur Young, to pawn. He plans on hitting the dog track for a big score, then return the ring with no one the wiser.

While doing the deal he mentions that his shop has just taken in 10,000 pounds worth of jewels. Young hands Kenney his pawn ticket and cash and shuffles him out.

Later that day, Keeney's workplace is hit by a pair of hard case types. The two blow open the safe and scoop up the jewels. The pair are interrupted by the guard as they make their getaway. They dispose of said guard with several shots from a revolver and out the door they go.

At the jewellers, the police are grilling the staff about the robbery. Had the staff told anyone about the large shipment in the safe. Morris is talking with Dorne when he gets news of the robbery. Morris speeds over to the jewellers but is chased off by the Detective Inspector. Keeney suddenly sees some possible cash and chases down Morris. Kenney did mention the jewels to the pawnbroker. Hopefully the info will be worth a few quid from the Morris.

After Morris had left her, Miss Dorne, who lives near the jewellers, sees a group of busking musicians who are joined by another pair(the robbers). Something odd here she thinks. The men then quickly leave the area. Dorne follows and sees them all enter the back of Young's pawnshop.She thinks the pawnshop is a cover for the robbers.

Dorne heads back to Morris' flat where Morris is talking with Kenney. Kenney wants to know if there is a reward for info? The two men are now joined by Miss Dorne. She explains what she has seen and about the pawnshop. Kenney hearing everything Dorne says, hits the bricks. A new light-bulb has went off for him. Instead of a few pounds from Morris, he will do a bit of blackmail on Young.

Kenney approaches Young and asks for 1000 pounds to remain quiet. Young simply pulls a gun and shoots Kenney. He then joins the gang in the downstairs rooms. He needs them to dispose of the body. He then hits his swag stash and loads a briefcase. Young knows that the Police are probably on the way and his cover as a pawnbroker gone. He sneaks off over the roofs with the jewels, leaving the gang behind.

And right he is. Morris has informed the Police of Dorne's hunch. They come storming in and meet a barrage of bullets. The pawnshop is soon in flames as the gang tries to escape.

Morris sees Young on the roof and is waiting when he hits the ground. Several lefts and a right end any further attempt at escape.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, err, I mean Morris' flat. Dorne is being kidnapped. She is bundled down to the docks and loaded on to a freighter. There she is soon joined Patrick Holt of all people. We now find out that Holt is the mysterious 'Mister G". Young and the gang had been working for him all along. His contacts in the Insurance companies and Police had helped him plan most of the hold-ups.

Holt is infatuated with Dorne. He intends on taking her along to a sunny climate hideout.

Morris needless to say does the old nick of time rescue and gives the bounder, Holt, "a right thrashing!" Case closed. (b/w)

This Thriller is a BLAST!!!

[zardoz-13 · 8/10 · 20 August 2022]

Warner Brothers leading man Wayne Morris went across the pond to make "The Gelignite Gang," a nifty little mystery thriller about notorious British criminals who use dynamite to blow safes and a pawn shop proprietor who keeps the jewelry on ice until he can unload it. Jimmy Baxter (Wayne Morris) and his partner John Rutherford (Patrick Holt of "Night of the Prowler") run a private detective firm, Anglo-American Investigations, and they have posted a reward for information about these dastardly criminals who are prepared to kill anybody who interferes with skullduggery. No sooner have they advertised the reward than the head waiter at "The Green Dragon" rushed off to a call box to take advantage of it. Unfortunately, before he can spill the beans, he is shot and killed. This tightly made little black & white gem has more depth than most Brit B-movies, and Brandon Fleming's screenplay contains a red herring or two to spice up the shenanigans. Morris doesn't break a sweat during these antics, but he has the hood sense to keep Scotland Yard in the loop. Arthur Young plays a sinister pawnbroker who has assembled a gang of street beggars who play an essential role in the robberies. Veteran director Francis Searle shared the helm with future Hammer director Terence Fisher, but it is anybody's guess who handled the lion's share of the chores. Nevertheless, this nimble crime saga never runs out of momentum, and the performances are solid.