The Breaking Point (1961 film)

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The Breaking Point
"The Breaking Point" (1961).jpg
U.S. release poster
Directed by Lance Comfort
Screenplay byPeter Lambert
Based onThe Breaking Point
1957 novel
by Laurence Meynell
Produced byPeter Lambert
Starring
Cinematography
Edited by Peter Pitt
Music by Albert Elms
Production
company
Distributed byButcher's Film Service
Release date
  • 20 February 1961 (1961-02-20)
Running time
59 minutes
CountryEngland
LanguageEnglish

The Breaking Point (also known as The Great Armored Car Swindle for the US release) 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] The screenplay was by Peter Lambert based on the 1957 novel by Laurence Meynell.

Contents

It was one of several British crime films starring Reynolds. [3]

Plot

Eric Winlatter works at a currency printing company. When the company wins a contract to print banknotes for the Middle East state of Lavadore, he is persuaded to help revolutionaries hijack 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

Critical reception

Variety said the film's greatest strength was its brevity." [4]

Kine Weekly said "Taut crime melodrama, unfolded against a convincing London backdrop." [5]

The 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." [6]

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." [7]

References

  1. ↑ Chibnall, Steve; McFarlane, Brian (2009). The British 'B' Film. London: BFI/Bloomsbury. p. 244. ISBN   978-1-8445-7319-6.
  2. ↑ "The Breaking Point". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
  3. ↑ Vagg, Stephen (11 November 2024). "Peter Reynolds: Forgotten Cad". Filmink. Retrieved 11 November 2024.
  4. ↑ "The Great Armoured Car Swindle". Variety. 8 April 1964. p. 6.
  5. ↑ "The Breaking Point". Kine Weekly . 525 (2784): 10. 9 February 1961 – via ProQuest.
  6. ↑ "The Breaking Point". Monthly Film Bulletin . 28 (324): 35. 1961 – via ProQuest.
  7. ↑ Radio Times Guide to Films (18th ed.). London: Immediate Media Company. 2017. p. 128. ISBN   9780992936440.
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