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Tag Archives: Stanley Baker
Pulp Friday: Hell is a City
A very quick Pulp Friday offering, Maurice Procter’s Hell is a City, published by Arrow Books, 1957. I am not sure, but this edition may even be the first British release of the novel in paperback.
Procter was a former Manchester policeman turned crime writer, best known for his police procedurals featuring the character of Detective Chief Inspector Harry Martineau, based in a tough fictional northern England industrial town. Proctor penned 14 Martineau novels, which appeared between 1954 and 1969, of which Hell is a City was the first.
Two things have got me thinking about the Martineau books. The first is my PhD research at the moment, which has been looking at the prevalence of American style detective and PI crime fiction in the 1950s in the US, UK and Australia. Procter’s work is different from a lot of post-war British crime pulp, which was set in America.
I’ve also been reading Nick Triplow’s excellent biography of English crime writer, Ted Lewis, Getting Carter (which I’ll be reviewing on this site in the coming weeks).
Among the popular cultural touchstones, Triplow writes, that would inspire Lewis’s work, including the iconic series of British gangster novels featuring the character of Jack Carter, was the 1960 film adaption of Hell is City by Val Guest.… Read more
Posted in British crime cinema, British pulp fiction, Crime film, Pulp fiction, Pulp Friday, Pulp paperback cover art, Stanley Baker, Ted Lewis, Vintage pulp paperback covers
Tagged Detective Chief Inspector Harry Martineau, Getting Carter, Hell Drivers (1957), Hell is a City (1960), Jack Carter, Maurice Procter, Nick Triplow, Stanley Baker, Ted Lewis, The Criminal (1960), Val Guest
The 10 essential films of Stanley Baker
Welsh born actor Stanley Baker didn’t live to see his 50th birthday, but he left an impressive body of work. Like his friend Richard Burton, he escaped life as a coalminer for acting after a chance sighting in a school play by the casting director of Ealing Studios led to Baker’s first role in the 1943 war drama, Undercover. His rugged physique and hard grace meant he was most often cast as the tough guy in crime movies and spearheaded the evolution of the British film criminal from the gentlemen thief to more ruthless figures, often working-class, in films such Hell Drivers (1957), Joseph Losey’s The Criminal and Peter Yate’s 1967 heist film, Robbery.
Last weekend he would have been 88, were he still alive. To mark his career, I have a piece on the British Film Institute site looking at his 10 essential films. You can read it in full here.
Posted in British crime cinema, Heist films, Joseph Losey, Stanley Baker, War film
Tagged Accident (1967), Anne Heywood, Cy Enfield, David McCullum, David Warner, Dirk Bogarde, Donald Pleasence, Eva (1962), Hell Drivers (1957), Innocent Bystanders (1972), Jacqueline Sassard, James Booth, Jeanne Moreau, Joseph Losey, Michael Caine, Patrick McGoohan, Perfect Friday (1970), Peter Yates, Robbery (1967), Stanley Baker, The Criminal (1960), The Guns of Navarone (1961), Ursula Andress, Violent Playground (1957), Zulu (1964)
Hell Drivers
When we think classic noir cinema, we usually think of America. But in the forties, fifties and sixties, Britain produced its share of great noirs.
The British noirs I’ve seen are dark, brutal affairs, perhaps even more uncompromising than their American counterparts because of their depiction of the UK’s all pervasive and claustrophobic class system. Films like Brighton Rock (1949), The Third Man (1949), Basil Dreaden’s heist film, The League of Gentlemen and John Guillermin’s Never Let Go (which both came out in 1960) and the terrific Joseph Losey movie starring Dirk Bogarde, The Servant (1963).
But without doubt one of the best and toughest of the crop of post-war British noirs was Cy Endfield’s 1957 film, Hell Drivers. From the very beginning, the view from the cabin of a truck being driven at dangerously high speed, The Hell Drivers brims with pent up fury.
The plot of Hell Drivers is fairly simple. Tom (Stanley Baker) plays a young working class man fresh out of jail following a botched heist that crippled his brother (David McCallum) and left him with a huge burden of guilt. He takes a job at Hawlett Trucking Company. The work involves him driving a ten tonne truck to a gravel pit, loading gravel, and transporting it to a new construction site, as quickly and as many times a day as they can.… Read more
Posted in British crime cinema, Crime film, Joseph Losey, Stanley Baker
Tagged Brighton Rock (1949), Cy Enfield, David McCullum, Dr No (1961), Gordon Jackson, Hell Drivers (1957), Herbet Lom, Joseph Losey, Patrick McGoohan, Peggy Cummins, Sean Connery, Sid James, Stanley Baker, The Criminal (1960), The Servant (1963), The Third Man (1949), William Hartnell
Warren Oates, Gloria Grahame & other subjects for fiction anthologies
The recent release of Crime Factory’s LEE, an anthology of crime fiction inspired by the life of iconic actor Lee Marvin, has got me thinking about who else would be a good subject for similar treatment.
There’s already been a bit of chatter on Twitter about other actors people would like to see as the subject of their own fictional anthology, and several authors have contacted me with ideas.
There are only two criteria involved I can think of in choosing a subject.
First, the subject concerned has got to be deceased, preferably passed a while ago. It’s just too complex, legally and other ways to do an anthology based on someone living.
Second, there’s got to be something about them. Not just an interesting body of cinematic work and an interesting life, but an ongoing cultural resonance or zeitgeist that sets them apart from other actors and allows crime writers discuss broader issues.
Here are my picks for actors I think would be good subjects. And I should stress, these are just my musings and in no way reflect what Crime Factory will do in the future.
That said, you never know….
Warren Oates
There’s already been a bit of social media chatter about the possibility of a Warren Oates inspired anthology.… Read more
Posted in 1960s American crime films, 1970s American crime films, Film Noir, Gloria Grahame, Lee Marvin, Stanley Baker, Sterling Hayden
Tagged 92 in the Shade (1975), Asphalt Jungle (1950), Badlands (1973), Bit Heat (1953), Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1969), Cockfighter (1975), Dillinger (1973), Hell Drivers (1957) The Criminal (1960), Hell is a City (1966), In a Lonely Place (1950), innocent Bystanders, Johnny Guitar (1954), LEE, Lee Marvin, Major Dundee (1965), Naked Alibi (1954), Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), Race with the Devil (1975), Sam Peckinpah, Stanley Baker, Stanley Kubrick, Sterling Hayden, Stripes (1981), The Godfather (1972), The Guns of Navarone (1961), The Killing (1956), The Wild Bunch (1969), Two Lane Black Top, Warren Oates
The heist always goes wrong, part 1: ten of the best heist movies ever made
I love the genius and intricacy of their plots and the variations they come in, whether it be the all star team assembled for a job or the desperate ex-cons trying for one last score.
But most of all I love them because of the golden rule of all good heist films – for whatever reason, the heist always goes wrong.
What do you need for a good heist?
You need a plan for actual heist itself, the getaway, and moving, storing and fencing whatever it is you’ve stolen. The more complicated the plan, the more likely it is that something will go wrong.
You need a crew of people; one man or woman alone cannot do a heist. This introduces the human element and all the problems that come with it, the greed, suspicions, jealousies and uncertainties.
I’ve been thinking for a while now about what my top ten-heist films would be and the following list, in no particular order, is it.
The robbery itself is almost immaterial to how I rate a good heist film. What I like is the context and atmosphere in which the heist takes place and inevitable problems that arise after it’s been pulled off. And the darker and more broken things get, the better the film is in my book.… Read more
Posted in 1960s American crime films, 1970s American crime films, 1980s American crime films, Angie Dickinson, Charles Durning, Donald Westlake aka Richard Stark, Ernest Borgnine, Film Noir, French cinema, Gene Hackman, Heist films, James Caan, Jim Brown, Peter Boyle, Peter Yates, Robert Mitchum, Sidney Lumet, Stanley Baker, Sterling Hayden, Yaphet Kotto
Tagged A Cop (1972), Across 110th Street (1972), Al Pacino, Alain Delon, Angie Dickinson, Anthony Quinn, Armoured Car Robbery (1950), Basil Dearden, Catherine Deneuve, Charles Durning, Crime Wave (1954), Criss Cross (1949), Diahann Carroll, Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Don Siegel, Donald Westlake aka Richard Stark, Ernest Borgnine, Gene Hackman, Heat (1995), heist films, Jack Klugman, James Booth, James Caan, James Whitmore, Jim Brown, Joanna Pettel, John Cazale, Joseph Loosey, Money Movers (1979), Peter Boyle, Peter Yates, Richard Jordan, Richard Stark, Robbery (1967), Robert De Niro, Robert Mitchum, Robert Prosky, Ronald Reagan, Sexy Beast (2000), Stanley Baker, Sterling Hayden, Sydney Lumet, The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The Bank job (2008), The Criminal (1960), The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973), The Killers (1964), The League of Gentlemen (1960), The Red Circle (1970), Tuesday Weld, Warren Oates, Yaphet Kotto