A low budget British crime thriller from the early 1960s. The plot centres around a crook, Carl Stock (George Mikell). Having previously taken the rap for a robbery, he ended up doing time in prison and being deported from Britain, which not only cost him his share of the loot but also his marriage. Now he has finally managed to slip back into the country to reclaim what he considers to be his. However, his former colleague (Eddie Byrne) is now something of a big shot and is unwilling to entertain Stock's requests for financial recompense. Likewise Stock's wife, Kay (Betty McDowall) has moved on with her life and isn't altogether pleased when he turns up again out of the blue. And so the situation plays out, and it isn't long before the local police, headed by Superintendent Frawley (William Hartnell, just before he would land his defining role as television's original Doctor Who) are concerned with events.
Although the situation has plenty of potential, unfortunately the film plods along in a very pedestrian fashion and seems incapable of delivering a genuinely surprise twist, tension or intrigue. The majority of the characters are completely one-dimensional and the relationships between them, including crucially the one between Stock and his wife, lack any depth whatsoever. The film's saving grace for me was the character of Lenny Lane, former safe-cracker now gone straight, who is dragged back into the mire. The role is played by Michael Ripper, too often relegated to bit parts in films but here he gets something more substantial and shows how capable a performer he is. Lane and his young friend Sally (Sylvia Davies) are probably the only characters in the whole piece who are anything other than bland. Even settings in the London streets, a nightclub and (notably) Arsenal FC's football stadium fail to come alive under Montgomery Tully's limp direction.
Little-seen for many years, Jackpot recently underwent a restoration allowing it to be broadcast on television again. This restored print unfortunately still shows signs of damage and ends very abruptly before cutting into what are clearly recreated closing captions. I would hope the original release had a more satisfying closing scene but given the amount of dross that makes up the bulk of the picture, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it hadn't.
As a point of interest, this was the third project that Eddie Byrne and Betty McDowall had starred in together in little over a year, having previously collaborated on the film Jack The Ripper and the TV series Call Me Sam.
