Robbery (1967)

Very well executed

To me, this movie is perfection.

Stylish but barely mediocre overall

People are voting emotionally.

Well, this wasn't the first movie about a great train robbery, and it won't be the last. But, it's one of the best I've seen: excellent cast of characters headed by Stanley Baker, a well-paced plot which concentrates on the planning and execution of the actual daring robbery in 1963; and which allowed the director, Peter Yates, to show how well he can film tight action sequences and car chases.Speaking of the last, it was the opener - a brilliant getaway sequence through London as the robbers elude police Jaguars in their own silver-gray streak - which caught the eye of Steve McQueen who asked Yates to direct his planned movie Bullitt (1968). Good timing for director Yates, that's for sure. If you've seen both movies, you can definitely see the Yates touch....(Ever have the feeling, though, it's a waste of time for cops to chase bad guys in cars? All through the filming of this chase, the police know it's a sliver-gray 3.4 liter Jaguar and it's registration number, all about it. Would have been easier for the cops to just hunt down all owners/dealers etc. Aaah, but we would've missed the excitement....) Anyway ... Robbery goes through the motions of showing how it's all done, how the robbers hide, how they try to get away and, finally, how they all get caught - except for one. No prizes for guessing who that was. As straight, linear filming and story-telling goes, it's professional and highly entertaining, mixing enough gallows humour with the deadly aspects of criminal behavior to satisfy this viewer; and probably most.Give this outing six out of ten. Recommended for all (no sex, no cuss words, no racism, no blasphemy: squeaky clean!).May 28, 2016

Robbery is directed by Peter Yates and adapted to screenplay by Yates, Edward Boyd and George Markstein from The Robber's Tale written by Peta Fordham. It stars Stanley Baker, James Booth, Frank Finlay, Joanna Pettet, Barry Foster, William Marlowe, George Sewell and Clinton Greyn. Music is by Johnny Keating and cinematography by Douglas Slocombe.As tough as steel toe capped docker boots, Robbery is a fictionalised take on the Great Train Robbery of 1963 that saw the London to Glasgow mail train stripped of its £2.6 million hold. It was a robbery seen as daring and near genius in its meticulous planning and execution. Coming out just four years after the real event, Peter Yates' film takes the skeleton facts of the real robbery and builds a dramatic carcass around it.Film is structured in three stages, firstly is a scintillating diamond robbery that introduces us to some of the major players in the train robbery to follow. This is fronted by an adrenalin pumping car chase that stands as one of the finest ever put to celluloid, kinetic and with inventive use of camera work, it's set to almost no dialogue and is car choreography of the highest order. Steve McQueen was so impressed he promptly arranged to have Yates summoned to Hollywood to direct Bullit.The second part of the picture and the meaty middle section of the tale, concentrates on the movers and shakers in the robbery. The planning of the event, the gathering of various criminal London factions, their meetings, arguments, frets and worries, even a scenario that sees ringleader Paul Clifton (Baker) arrange to have a currency expert broken out of prison. All the time while this is happening, as the various crooks move about various London locations such as bars, clubs, football grounds and abodes etc, we are also following the police side of things. The kicker here is that the police, led by Inspector George Langdon (Booth), know that something big is being planned, and by who, but they don't know what and have to bite their nails waiting for a break or for the event to actually happen!Finally the third part is the robbery itself and the aftermath involving the robbers hiding out, scattering to the wind as the cops close in. The robbery is edge of the seat brilliance, cunning in its execution and filmed with such gritty realism it really grabs the attention wholesale. The climax played out at a disused airfield is also exciting and such is the fact that previously we have been firmly tuned into the main characters on both sides of the law, we are fully immersed into what will become of them all.Yates and his cast are on fine form, with Baker and Booth excellent, in fact the film positively bristles with British beef at times! Slocombe's photography strips it back to basics, suitably so to imbue that documentary feel, and Keating's score thunders away like a criminal accomplice at times. While fans of 60s London as a period backdrop can't fail to feel well fed after film's end. Pettet's wife of Clifton angle feels under nourished, and the whole middle section inevitably fails to sustain the tempo created by that exhilarating first quarter of film, but small irritants only they be. For Robbery is a British Bulldog of a movie, its biceps bulging, its brain clicking into gear, in short, it's a cracker! 8/10

If there's a main flaw to "Robbery", it's the obsession with process and style. The characters are simply not a high enough concern here. There's certainly some good performances. William Marlowe, especially, has the perfect face for this sort of film. Peter Yates is a great director, but he displays only hits of the brilliance displays in later films like "Bullitt", "The Friends of Eddie Coyle", or even "The Hot Rock". All three films cover similar material, but this is the only one that is drowned in documentarian detail.There's not a lot more to say. If you're a fan of Yates, this was a important starting point for him. And the opening car chase is certainly thrilling. You just might enjoy this enough on the first watch.

This is true British gangster filming at its best. The opening robbery and car chase, from Hatton Garden around central London and out to Maida Vale, is utterly brilliant and that's years before the French Connection or anything like that. Peter Yates was brilliant. In fact, if they re-make any British gangster film these days it should be Robbery, not Get Carter or anything like that. The music is utterly brilliant, too. Johny Keating should be up there with the likes of John Barry, John Williams, etc. He seems to have done virtually nothing after this film. Even the faked scenes of the train robbery itself are great despite the London-Glasgow express train really being another train on a branch line travelling at about 30 mph. They could've made a sequeal to this, too, with the legendary and fantastic Stanley Baker shown in the New World. Same goes for the late Barry Foster.