Scarlet Thread

This film has just been shown as part of the "British films forever" season on BBC2.The film was made by Butchers Films(1910-1980)which made films for the bottom half of double bills.The film stars Sydney Tafler,the brother in law of that very versatile director Lewis Gilbert.Also starring is a very young Laurence Harvey ,before he adopted the "arent i beautiful"mannerisms of his later career,There are some very interesting location shots of the West End of London,including a number of cinema exteriors and also of Cambridge.The plot is a typical thriller of its times and has more holes in its plot than you would find in a piece of Swiss cheese.There is however one very daring scene for its time.Kathleen Byron plays the frustrated girlfriend of a don.She is immediately attracted to Harvey.They have a dance then a very sensual kiss and there is a clear indication that he can have his wicked way with her when mum has gone to sleep.To ensure an early night for mum she is given a sleeping pill but fate intervenes.Anyway to buffs of British cinema it is worth a watch.

SCARLET THREAD is an interesting little British crime film that works thanks to a good cast and some different locations to the usual. The plot sees B-movie veterans Laurence Harvey and Sydney Tafler playing an unlikely couple of robbers who decide to team up and rob a jewellers with the help of getaway driver Harry Fowler. Unfortunately things don't go to plan and they are forced to hide out in one of the local colleges, where Harvey falls for the charms of a young woman bored with her genteel life.

The first thing to note about this film is the location: instead of the grim back streets of London, this is set in the wide open Cambridge and in particular in the grounds of one of the colleges there. It makes for a refreshing change of scenery and the director makes good use of his locations throughout. SCARLET THREAD feels unpredictable from beginning to end and has sudden bursts of tense action mixed with growing suspense so that you never quite know what's going to transpire next.

The second thing of note is that the cast is very good for a film of this budget. Harvey excels as the hot-headed young criminal and makes the viewer feel nervous whenever he's on screen. Kathleen Byron is an effective object of lust and exudes charisma and believability in her part. Best of all is Tafler in a surprisingly large and sympathetic part for the actor; his crippled character is both desperate and pitiful and really holds the film together, an A-list performance in a B-list picture. The likes of Fowler, Dora Bryan, and Cyril Chamberlain add quality in minor parts. SCARLET THREAD is a decent addition to the genre that more than holds its own against rival American fare.

Laurence Harvey tries to lift Sidney Tafler's wallet. Tafler calls him out on it, but does not call the nearby police. Instead, he takes him home, gives him dinner, and tells him that when he has a job for him, he'll send for him. The job is a smash-and-grab on a jeweler's window in Cambridge. Harvey shoots a man who tries to interfere, a crowd gets between them and their getaway car, which drives off. The men outrace the crowd and take refuge in the University, where they impose, due to Tafler's having gone to Trinity, on Kathleen Byron, whose father has gone to a meeting in London.

Lewis Gilbert does a nice job directing his first feature. After a look at the town and the university grounds, it turns into a nice study in Tafler's and Harvey's minds. Harvey is a punk, exhibiting the craziness he would use to advantage in future movies. There's also a nice bit of suspense in the situation, with the police looking for them with poor descriptions, and the fate of the shot man. There is a touch too much in the way of coincidence in the second half of the movie, but it's tightly plotted and it holds together well while watching it.

A drab, talky little drama enhanced by vivid photography by veteran cameraman Geoffrey Faithfull, much of it filmed on location in London and then Cambridge.

A once-in-a-lifetime cast headed by top-billed Kathleen Byron then on the slide and Lawrence Harvey working his way up (along with director Lewis Gilbert) manages in one scene to include both Arthur Hill and Eliot Makeham.

What distinguishes this crime film from many of its contemporaries is not so much the plot, though the dialogue is above average, but the degree of authenticity its characters have and the location shooting in Cambridge and the West End of London.

Laurence Harvey's cheap aggressive spiv, complete with trilby and a phony accent, modelling himself on an American gangster, or at least the Hollywood version of one, had his real life counterparts, as court cases of the period show. One clever scene is set in a seedy amusement arcade as Harvey's womanising Freddie tries to pick up a low class tart (Dora Bryan) much to the disapproval of Sydney Tafler's educated, rather aloof, possibly gay character Marcon (alias Bellingham). There's also a vague resemblance at first to the relationship between Terry and Arthur in MINDER; Tafler is excellent throughout. We meet the magnetic Kathleen Byron's Josephine just before the botched smash and grab resulting in murder and soon learn of her anxiety at the prospect of being stifled amid the tranquil, cloistered "backwater" of her university surroundings with her suitor, staid academic Arthur Hill. Byron was one of the few British actresses of the day whose characters were clearly made of flesh and blood, and here the refined Josephine is sufficiently attracted to the working class, pseudo American Freddie, as to be quite ready to jump straight into bed with him, an unusual development for a film of the time. There's some tension and moments of dry humour, particularly involving Josephine's aunt Eleanor (Renee Kelly). But the film's main interest in the later stages lies in the relationship between the three leading characters, as it works out against the university background.

Sadly, the recent DVD release confirms that the film has only survived in a mutilated form, with minutes missing toward the end, leaving the eventual fate of Freddie, Marcon and accomplice Harry Fowler unclear.