This one is a real low-rent gem from the UK. An American ex-service man has the "perfect plan" to rob a train mail-car of it's weekly load of cash. His plan is to cut through the wall of the car while the train is moving. Once they have the cash they will toss the bags out the window at an arranged place to be picked by one of the gang. His crew includes a woman, an old time safe-cracker and the pick-up man. As with all "perfect plan" films things start to unravel rather quickly. This is a very good low-budget film with a great bang-up ending. Well worth catching if you can find it. Several of the other posters nail this one much better than i make it sound. Canadian actor Lee Patterson showed up in all sorts of these low-rent UK programmers.

Lee Patterson (Ronnie),Kay Callard (Jackie),Alan Gifford (Phil),Kerry Jordan (drunk),Jeremy Bodkin (Charlie),John Dearth (father),Patsy Smart (mother),Margaret Withers (woman),Gerald Case (guard),John Lee (young man),Mark Baker (Gibbs),Geoffrey Bodkin (neat boy).

Producer/director: COMPTON BENNETT. Screenplay: Norman Hudis. Story: Ralph Smart, Jan Read. Photography: Peter Hennessy. Film editor: John Trumper. Art director: Jack Stevens. Wardrobe: Vi Murray. Make- up: Eleanor Jones. Hairdresser: Eileen Warwick. Camera operator: Paddy A'Hearne. Set continuity: Rita Davison. Music director: Stanley Black. Production manager: Freddie Pearson. Assistant director: René Dupont. Sound: Len Page. Executive producer: Peter Rogers. An Insignia Film.

Copyright 1957. U.S. release through U.A. U.K. release through Anglo-Amalgamated: 5 January 1958. Australian release through B.E.F.: June 1960 (sic). 6,225 feet. 69 minutes. U.S. release title: Mailbag Robbery.

SYNOPSIS: Suspenseful, ingenious crime story: A daring scheme is carried out to perfection in imagination, but then we see setbacks on the actual trip. An unusual and holding thriller (Picture Show).

COMMENT: "The Flying Scot" starts off most ingeniously with not a word spoken for the first 15 or 20 minutes. Of course, the idea was stolen from "Rififi" but it's still a suspenseful one even in this grade "B" work-out. The sequence turns out to be a neat joke on the audience, and thereafter the film follows a more predictable course.

All the standard "B" elements are then deployed. Lots of talk and the plot line contrived so as to use the same sets over and over again; lots of filling out with extraneous plot strands that have very little to do with the main story; and all the scriptwriter's ingenuity channeled into ways to eke out the running time rather than ways to make the film more exciting.

Odd to see Compton Bennett whose previous film was the elaborate "A" costume musical "After the Ball", reduced to working in the "B" league and this film, although it is competently directed within the limits of an exceedingly tight budget, is not likely to improve his status. Apart from the introductory quarter-hour, it's dull repetition all the way.

The heroine is attractively costumed in the introductory sequence, but for most of the film, she wears much less flattering attire.

Acting is competent enough on a "B"-grade shuffle level (the scriptwriter doubtless congratulated himself on his brainwave of giving the second lead a perforated ulcer that makes the said character move very slowly).

Reminding me of "Rififi", the film starts with a young couple pasting signs on their train compartment window "Reserved - Newlyweds", when their body language tells that they are so obviously not! They change their clothes and within a short time are in the middle of a seamless, well rehearsed robbery aboard "The Flying Scot" - all told with no speech!! It seems too good to be true and it is. It is just a dream of cocky adrenalin filled Ronny (Lee Patterson) as he strives to sell his plan to his sceptical gang members. Phil (Alan Gifford) thinks it's do-able so along with waitress Jackie (sultry Kay Callard) they set about putting it into action.

Of course things go wrong, Ronny is too hot headed, instead of the easy screws in his dream, the money is behind a panel with immovable rivets so drills and saws have to be utilised, which makes them behind schedule so they miss their drop off point and now have to take the money off the train themselves. Phil becomes ill, the older woman in his carriage being a nurse realises it is a perforated ulcer and he later admits to Jackie that he postponed surgery that same week because this chance of easy money was too good to turn down.

Main player Ronny is unlikable which is a plot twist - Jackie has a lot of sympathy for Phil but like a lot of British "little" movies it is the quirkiness of the other players, any of which you are thinking will propel the narrative, that makes the film memorable. Firstly Phil's train companion has her head stuck in a crime magazine then announces "I've been watching you" - Phil stiffens but she reveals she is a nurse and is worried about his health. Another couple are a wife with an alcoholic husband, she is taking him to a clinic to "dry out" - concerned but keeping him supplied with liquor so he won't cause a disturbance on the train. A family, mother, father and bratty child cause grief to their fellow passengers with their different views on child rearing - mother wants the little boy to explore and be adventurous, father just itching to use a rolled up newspaper. Funniest part - a passenger who is on the receiving end of the unrestrained brat, is doing a cross-word, thinks long and hard about a word, sees the little boy and very clearly spells out B-A-S-T-A-R-D!!

I thought the little boy was going to "crack the case", he has already made himself troublesome around the train and has told all and sundry that he has seen a man with a gun, but like the little boy in "The Fallen Idol" he has told one lie too many and this is the chance his father is waiting for. As it is the instigator is a passing guard who puts justice in motion in a quietly unobtrusive British way.

Director Compton Bennett had a major hit with "The Seventh Veil" (1945) but by the mid 1950s he was ensconced in programmers. Shot in just 3 weeks on a budget of 18,000 pounds - shows what a imaginative and proficient director can do when given a chance.

Highly Recommended.