Offbeat

There was a reason America- born actor William Sylvester was available for an American director who only filmed in Europe and lived in England since both Sylvester and Stanley Kubrick ala 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY were British staples: In fact the former was in as many British b-movies as any English-born b-movie actor...

Some good, others okay, OFFBEAT aka THE DEVIL INSIDE provides the usually smug, deliberately cool/calm performer real edge and intensity, starting out wearing dark sunglasses while robbing a bank... then meeting with fellow cops for whom he's an undercover agent...

OFFBEAT takes place mostly during one heist, and it's a tunnel job on a quiet city street...

Sylvester's job is to infiltrate a syndicate of big-time thieves; yet this den is full of working-class types so crooked they're almost normal, including by-the-numbers leader Anthony Dawson and affable John Meillon, who, along with some muscle, pose as construction workers.

But it's the gang's token ingenue Mai Zetterling that matters, lovely and tough despite falling too hard too fast for our anti-hero, constantly dogged by his Scotland Yard boss... which, as he and we learn, could be for understandable reasons, and is thus Sylvester's best crime-flick role, juggling a kind of criminal/cop ambiguity like only a good Noir can.

'Downbeat' would have been a more appropriate tile for this poor man's 'Asphalt Jungle' told in flashback so we already know the ultimate fate of the hero.

Slickly made with a capable cast and lots of cynical one-liners like "Better not work too hard or someone will get suspicious!", it's one drawback is an annoying score by Ken Jones.

An undercover agent (William Sylvester) infiltrates a gang planning a daring bank heist; inevitably all does not go entirely to plan when he gets in deep and develops a conscience.

An above-average short from the British Lion studios so much of the location work is around Shepperton. What sets this film apart from most of its contemporaries is its sympathetic depiction of the bank robbers; instead of being shown as two-dimensional bad apples, or smug cockney geezers (see most Brit crime offerings circa early 2000s), here they are a proper small business profit and loss set-up, headed by the excellent Anthony Dawson.

Sylvester's character (Layton/Ross) starts off almost unbearably slick and cool, but the chemistry between him and Mai Zetterling is tangible, and he mellows. John Meillon (much later of Crocodile Dundee fame), is also very likeable as a fellow gang member, piling on the ethical dilemma for our antihero as the film builds to a very effective climax. The only problem for the viewer was that it was difficult to equate the murder - a brutal running down in a getaway car- of a police officer at the beginning of the film, and this engaging, amiable and hard-working outfit. Past that minor quibble, this is one of the good ones.

Firstly can i say that i really enjoyed the very funny scene in the bank with the wrestlers rehearsing their fight.There seemed to be any number of British crime films of this era where criminals were breaking into bank vaults.Thé only difference in this film is the presence or an undercover policeman,hence the pun in the title.A reasonable but not memorable film.

Director Cliff Owen's brisk 60s crime caper demonstratively remains an exciting, palm-sweatingly dynamic underworld thriller exposing the inherent risks of Scotland Yard's cavalier methodology to thwart the increasingly audacious criminal elements lurking within the UK's labyrinthine metropolis. Steve Ross (William Sylvester) is an ice-pick cool undercover agent, and after successfully infiltrating an established firm, Steve very soon finds himself dangerously embroiled in an especially audacious jewel heist which ultimately prompts him to realign his allegiances to his own financial, if not moral advantage! The robbery itself is beautifully conceived, energetically orchestrated by gifted film-maker Owen, in fact the film's stylistic influence on contemporary Brit-crime thrillers is quite obvious. 'Offbeat' has an unusually robust text, winningly vivid performances from a talented cast, including another luminous turn from the always delightful Mia Zetterling, and maestro Ken Jones's exemplary jazz score provides an exhilarating backbeat to the palpably tense, increasingly white-hot intensity of the gang's subterranean larceny! 'Offbeat' is a hard-hitting, finely-honed Brit-crime classic that forcefully maintains its sinewy grip right until its legitimately thrilling climax. Fans of cult British cinema might care to know that journeyman director Cliff Owen also directed the amiable farce 'No Sex Please We're British!' (1973)