I Watch Films: Crosstrap

Some films become classics and are watched and rewatched long after release. Most are justly forgotten other than by a handful of fans. In between there are those that were good, and perhaps even a perfect representation of their time, and yet are barely remembered for whatever reason.

Crosstrap is a 1962 black and white British crime movie; at just over 60 minutes running time it is an actual B-movie, designed to be part of a cinema program (consisting of Main Feature, B-movie, an episode of a serial, a newsreel, some cartoons, and maybe a documentary), which we rarely see these days. B-movies could be great, but more usually were merely another entry into a well known and popular genre with little to distinguish them from the next. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all (to exaggerate unfairly). Of course fifty years on most of us haven’t seen actually seen one, hence me watching it and then writing this, you're welcome.

A writer and his wife go to the cottage they spent their honeymoon in for their anniversary to find it is being used as a hideout for some jewel thieves. Another gang of thieves arrives and lays siege, trapping them inside. No one trusts anyone. At dawn a plane will come to take the jewel thieves to Spain.

It’s quite tense. Some of the characters are weird; the leader of the first gang is both smarmy and a perv. Most of it takes place inside the cottage set with a few outdoor scenes as people try and run for it. There’s a bit of money spent on effects when the plane arrives and there’s a shootout. Apparently it was pretty violent for its time. There’s a cool jazzy soundtrack that is appropriately frantic if a little upbeat on occasion.

(The Wikipedia page notes that it was missing, presumed lost but has, fairly obviously as I watched it, been found and digitised.)

Watch This: To get an idea of what early 60s British crime films were like, and also for a quick and tense thriller.
Don’t Watch This: If slightly mismatched actors and acting and people being desperate in small rooms, then running across fields being shot at is not for you.
I Saw This: On Talking Pictures TV, an extremely interesting channel for old film and TV.