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The League of Gentlemen is a sardonic crime drama in which Jack Hawkins plays an embittered retired army officer who recruits seven fellow ex-soldiers to carry out a bank raid with military precision. The film presents an England between post-war austerity and the more liberated 1960s where traditional moral certainties were rapidly being discarded; a London where ex-officers left on the scrapheap at war's end could justify turning their military experience to armed robbery. Unfortunately the tale is neither particularly amusing or thrilling, with an overlong central detour via an army camp prefacing the exciting heist and a largely anti-climactic ending. Nevertheless Hawkins effectively subverts his heroic officer type from
The Cruel Sea (1953) and
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), and there’s excellent support from a great cast including Nigel Patrick, Richard Attenborough and Roger Livesey.
Bryan Forbes not only wrote the cynical screenplay but co-starred with wife Nanette Newman in her first significant screen role. More influential than truly classic, The League of Gentlemen has lent its name to a modern BBC comedy and an "Extraordinary" comic strip-turned-movie, and proved the template for heist films ever since, including both versions of The Italian Job (1969 and 2003). --Gary S. Dalkin
Product Description
Imagine a group of eight slightly shady, definitely desperate ex-army officers getting together--not for old times' sake, but to use their collective military talents to capture a bank! Jack Hawkins is superb as the mastermind behind "Operation Golden Fleece," flanked by Nigel Patrick as the capable transport officer and Richard Atteborough as the sleazy radio operator.
The League of Gentlemen is a uniquely British thriller loaded with comedy, suspense, and a fiendishly clever bank robbery.
