Yet another cautious, severely unpretentious British heist flick where tight calculation and timing are everything, and, directed by Peter Graham Scott... who'd soon make Hammer's NIGHT CREATURES... this is a Post Noir where the characters discuss more than they actually do while the conversations have a page-turning cadence sans the b-movie pulp...
Making BREAKOUT not very fun but there IS another slowburn role for underrated English actor William Lucas (THE BREAK, CALCULATED RISK) as a cool/classy businessman criminal... paired with a spectacle-wearing wolf, seducing the gorgeous wife of the man they're hired to BREAKOUT...
And that's CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN good girl fiance Hazel Court as the token bad girl... but the key player hired for the dirty work is handsome Lee Patterson, a government paper-pusher on an urgent search for the right truck for a quick "drive in and pick up" escape...
Here director Scott wields palpable 11th hour suspense, especially since our anti-hero has the most to lose with pretty crime-oblivious wife Billie Whitelaw at home...
But other than a pint-sized Irish barfly trucker, jailed for Patterson to take the wheel, it's Hazel Court's ride: Had this been more than a sixty-minute dialog-driven programmer, she has the femme fatale potential to seduce BOTH partners (Lucas and the sweet-talking John Paul) whose job's to free a husband she doesn't want or care about...
Which, on its own, is NOIR defined: but in 1959 it was a year too late.