Compelled (1960) User Reviews

Dull Crime Drama From the Danzigers

[boblipton · 4/10 · 8 September 2017]

Ronald Howard is a newly-minted engineer COMPELLED to help in a jewel robbery. It's a dull little crime drama from the Danziger Brothers, in which the plot is expanded by suspicions of his wife, Beth Rogan, who thinks he is having an affair, and Jack Melford, who turns up a couple of times to threaten the thieves with a gun, mostly to stretch it out to second feature length. It's cheap and tawdry and under an hour and not really worth your time.

Howard is more interesting for being the son of Leslie Howard; he had small roles in two of his father's movies, and for playing Sherlock Holmes in almost forty episodes of a syndicated show in the 1950s.He had a nice career on the big and little screens, but rarely in anything that makes him stand out.

"After all a quarter of a million is worth some outlay"

[hwg1957-102-265704 · 5/10 · 11 September 2017]

An ex-convict and now engineer is compelled to help two criminals excavate a tunnel from a book shop into a jewellery vault. There are a few complications on the way including the engineer's wife and a Mr. Grimes who muscles in on the thievery. Produced by Edward and Harry Danziger and directed by Ramsey Herrington (who only directed one other film about a nudist camp!) this is a bit dull. A lot of scenes take place in the tunnel and it's hard to make that exciting.

The cast do their best with the dull dialogue. John Gabriel as Fenton, one of the villains, comes off best. Seemingly pleasant but with an avaricious mind and a cold heart. His henchman is called Jug, which for some reason I found amusing.

The Danziger's output was very variable in quality. This was not a good one.

Don't Be Compelled To Watch This

[malcolmgsw · 5/10 · 21 April 2014]

This is a typical cheap Danzigers B Production.Howard is blackmailed into helping to dig a tunnel into the vault of a nearby jewelers,thereby ruining his marriage,his hands and his job as an architect.The logical thing would be for him to tell the police and his wife.alas the film is not very well written and poorly developed.We have 2 very strange characters lurking about.firstly there is the rather simple minded henchman who on the one hand is trying to learn French and on the other hand happy to murder for his boss.Then we have a strange character who wanders into the basement with a gun and demands a cut of the loot..Added to this we have a very contrived ending.Certainly in the second division when compared to Merton Park films.

An OK noir from across the Channel

[searchanddestroy-1 · 25 November 2012]

Produced by the Danzigers - the equivalent of the Butchers - the prolific British producers from the beginning of the sixties, and maybe far earlier, I'll check, this little B thriller is rather interesting, as far as you're interesting in heist films. This one is the usual one, OK, nothing really new, where the lead, an architect - or engineer - and also ex con, who now lives in the honest way, is blackmailed by some hoods in order to help them in a daring robbery: digging a tunnel below the street between two buildings, towards a vault where a jewels bullion is kept in safety.

Predictable at the most, without surprises, it remains an acceptable time waster for rare gems purchasers.