| The Breaking Point | |
|---|---|
.jpg.webp) U.S. release poster | |
| Directed by | Lance Comfort |
| Written by |
|
| Produced by | Peter Lambert |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography |
|
| Edited by | Peter Pitt |
| Music by | Albert Elms |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Butcher's Film Service |
Release date |
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Running time | 59 minutes |
| Country | England |
| Language | English |
The Breaking Point (also known as The Great Armored Car Swindle) is a 1961 second feature[1] British crime film directed by Lance Comfort and starring Peter Reynolds, Dermot Walsh, Joanna Dunham and Lisa Gastoni.[2]
Plot
Eric Winlatter works at a curency printing company. When the company wins a contract to print banknotes for the Middle East state of Lavadore, he is persuaded to help revolutionaries hi-jack the currency shipment. Cherry, his neglected wife, becomes suspicious and tells journalist Robert Wade. Eric is killed when he falls out of the villains' escape plane.
Cast
- Peter Reynolds as Eric Winlatter
- Dermot Walsh as Robert Wade
- Joanna Dunham as Cherry Winlatter
- Lisa Gastoni as Eva
- Jack Allen as Ernest Winlatter
- Brian Cobby as Peter de Savory
- Arnold Diamond as Telling
- Eric Corrie as Wilson
- Desmond Cullum-Jones as Evans
- Geoffrey Denton as debt collector
- Richard Golding as Mintos
- John G. Heller as Mel
- Gertan Klauber as Lofty
- John Lawrence as security officer
- Mercia Mansfield as Ernest's secretary
- Charles Russell as Cappel
Critical reception
Kine Weekly said "Taut crime melodrama, unfolded against a convincing London backdrop."[3]
Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "A waste of one of Laurence Meynell's better novels, this trimmed to the bone thriller has little to offer apart from a well-staged gambling party sequence, a speedy climax and some desultory rough-and-tumble."[4]
The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 1/5 stars, writing: "If stars were awarded for plot contrivance, this low-budget thriller would be well into double figures. There's a banknote printer with a gambling debt, revolutionaries with a counterfeiting plan, an armed robbery, a bomb, a touch of adultery and a speeding plane finale. Not one character rings true nor is one fragment of the storyline credible."[5]
References
- ↑ Chibnall, Steve; McFarlane, Brian (2009). The British 'B' Film. London: BFI/Bloomsbury. p. 244. ISBN 978-1-8445-7319-6.
- ↑ "The Breaking Point". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
- ↑ "The Breaking Point". Kine Weekly. 525 (2784): 10. 9 February 1961 – via ProQuest.
- ↑ "The Breaking Point". Monthly Film Bulletin. 28 (324): 35. 1961 – via ProQuest.
- ↑ Radio Times Guide to Films (18th ed.). London: Immediate Media Company. 2017. p. 128. ISBN 9780992936440.
External links