Low-budget thriller has THE BREAK baddie and overall regular British New Wave actor William Lucas in CALCULATED RISK, a hybrid of THE ASPHALT JUNGLE as a newly-released older short guy has big plans for a big heist (John Rutland doing Sam Jaffe) and LARCENY INC since they must dig through a pair of locations to reach the targeted goal...
Which aren't stores but bombed-out houses from twenty-years past, leading to a lucrative bank vault while Lucas, as a sophisticated yet crooked businessman (like ASPHALT backer Louis Calhern), who really doesn't need the bread (unlike Calhern and more like shifty Marc Lawrence), heads up a group of thugs resembling dockyard barflies...
Yet for two-way eye-candy's sake, the tallest, most handsome (Terence Cooper as the Sterling Hayden muscle type) has a quick hookup with adorable local girl-next-door Dilys Watling...
Also peripheral is Warren Mitchell, stealing his one scene providing random exposition and, within the main gang's heavy-lifting phase, not much happens to distinguish each crook's role in the task (except that the initial idea-man's health has him sit it out)...
Instead what's really important is historic i.e. WHEN the heist takes place...
During England's infamous Winter of/Big Freeze of 1963, where CALCULATED composer George Martin (just starting work with The Beatles) makes ample use of an icy-sounding harpsichord...
And while the Noirish atmosphere is palpably bleak for the location it's not quite claustrophobic or suspenseful enough for the crime...
Which ultimately includes an actual buried buzz-bomb that may be active, and there's very little time left before... the movie's run-time is up because, after all, this RISK is merely a programmer.
Which aren't stores but bombed-out houses from twenty-years past, leading to a lucrative bank vault while Lucas, as a sophisticated yet crooked businessman (like ASPHALT backer Louis Calhern), who really doesn't need the bread (unlike Calhern and more like shifty Marc Lawrence), heads up a group of thugs resembling dockyard barflies...
Yet for two-way eye-candy's sake, the tallest, most handsome (Terence Cooper as the Sterling Hayden muscle type) has a quick hookup with adorable local girl-next-door Dilys Watling...
Also peripheral is Warren Mitchell, stealing his one scene providing random exposition and, within the main gang's heavy-lifting phase, not much happens to distinguish each crook's role in the task (except that the initial idea-man's health has him sit it out)...
Instead what's really important is historic i.e. WHEN the heist takes place...
During England's infamous Winter of/Big Freeze of 1963, where CALCULATED composer George Martin (just starting work with The Beatles) makes ample use of an icy-sounding harpsichord...
And while the Noirish atmosphere is palpably bleak for the location it's not quite claustrophobic or suspenseful enough for the crime...
Which ultimately includes an actual buried buzz-bomb that may be active, and there's very little time left before... the movie's run-time is up because, after all, this RISK is merely a programmer.