The Concrete Jungle

No doubt about it, Stanley Baker is a riveting screen presence. He commands just by appearing. Maybe it's that patented jut-jawed intensity. In my little book, he's the main reason for catching up with this British crime drama, which otherwise is a disappointment considering that noir-master Joe Losey is in charge.

Admittedly, I lost some of the British dialogue because of my American ears. Nonetheless, there's a one-note monotony to the visuals, the characters, and the storyline-- no one can be trusted, life is grim, and the visuals rub our nose in the ugliness. Still, the movie is titled Concrete Jungle, not Concrete Vacation, so as far as the marquee is concerned, there is 'truth in packaging'. Nonetheless, there's little suspense or tension in the screenplay, an odd outcome for a crime drama. Events simply follow on one another without much structural development.

Why the robbery itself is passed over is puzzling since that would have provided needed suspense. My guess is that a detailed depiction would have followed too closely on the heels of Kubrick's superb racetrack robbery in The Killing (1956). But, whatever the reason, both the crime and the aftermath are dealt with in unimaginative fashion.

Losey does keep things moving in fast-paced style, while Wanamaker's slippery gangster represents an interesting character. Nonetheless, the result lacks the compelling social ambiguities of his better American films. All in all, I agree with reviewer BOUF—the result is "clunky and uneven", with an "under-developed script". Considering the source, I expected better.

Stanley Baker is convincing as a brutal villain, but it looked to me that he could easily have been nobbled by several of his prison inmates. There's a lot of talk that attempts to sew the plot together, but not a lot of action - and I don't mean fights and car chases, I mean the difference between taking the audience on a cinematic journey as opposed to being told what's happening by the dialogue. There's too much telling and not enough showing. Several of the set-pieces in this essentially crime/gangster genre story are clumsily handled. The robbery is poorly covered: we don't know what the plan is, or what the perpetrators are up against, plus several opportunities for high tension are muffed. In the prison, the conflicts are fairly well developed and realised, but often they're stagey or overwrought. Gregoire Aslan is an excellent 'capo' and there is some good character work by the supporting cast, but there is also some woeful acting. The general statement of this film is that this is a grim, bleak, violent society in which ordinary man is always imprisoned - that part works, but as a drama or a thriller it's clunky and uneven. An under-developed script, some patchy, but energetic direction, and a generally excellent job of anamorphic lensing by Aussie Robert Krasker.

We've all seen this story of convict sprung, goes straight back to old tricks and sent straight back to the can, receiving a warm welcome from all his former fellow inmates AND a spirited reception from prison direction, delighted to have the opportunity to execute all "corrective" measures at their disposal after he'd manipulated and humiliated them for his own purposes last time he was inside.

BUT you've never seen it in such beautiful B&W cinematography

OR with such a smart script with flashes of wit and menace in such quick succession as a strobe light.

AND what a large cast of top-notch actors creating such fully fleshed-out characters with such economy of physical expression and spoken lines.

One to watch

Joseph Losey does a superb job of directing cinema-verite'-style from start to finish. From the moment Cleo Laine sings Thieving Boy over the opening credits, I knew I was in for a special experience. Stanley Baker spent a career delivering some of the most haunting criminal characterizations of all time, and this is one of his all-time best. Patrick Magee is memorable in a minor supporting role. An incredible gritty film.

The blacklisted Joseph Losey whose loss to the American cinema was the United Kingdom's gain took his knowledge of American prison films to fashion this gem. Starring in Concrete Jungle is the premier British tough guy Stanley Baker in a role that in America, Humphrey Bogart might have been given first crack at.

Whoever said there was no honor among thieves must have run with Baker's mob. When we meet him, he's a day away from his release from one jail sentence, but not until some prison justice is meted out to a newly arriving Patrick Magee with whom Baker has a grudge over a previous job.

No sooner is Baker out than he's back in a nice caper concerning the robbery of a racetrack. But thieves being what they are somebody rats and Baker's back in stir. But not before he's buried the loot and doesn't tell anyone, the same thing he was mad at Magee for.

It's a scurvy lot Baker has for friends, I haven't seen this many bad people hold a viewer's interest without there being any redeeming good people in a film since I first saw Goodfellas. But like Goodfellas there is something fascinating about Baker and the whole crew, people like Sam Wanamaker, Gregoire Aslan, etc. Even the cops like Laurence Naismith aren't especially heroic. Naismith admits as much, he's just got a well developed system of stool pigeons which any cop worth his badge has.

Baker really dominates the film, the United Kingdom hasn't produced an actor like him since. Concrete Jungle is a classic example of his tough guy appeal and a great introduction to him.

And you'll love Cleo Laine's singing of A Thieving Boy at the beginning and end of the film.