Panic

John Gilling wrote and directed this very nice film noir in 1963, we see a lot of nasty characters, from a sexual predator hotel owner to an impressive brute played by the famous Milton Reid, from stupid beatnicks to all kinf of crooks, all threatening the beautiful Janine Gray having lost memory in a hold up (Janine Grey is a not too well known actress, 25 titles in her filmography, and mostly tv series). Thanks for her, she meets Glyn Houston as Mike, a honest former boxer who'll do everything for her without abusing, until the desperate last shot. Kind of Hithcock. Don't miss the sexy Julie Mendez.

Some unusual aspects to this thriller,which surfaced recently on a London tv station screening.For one the actors at the bottom of the cast are better known than the two leads.John Gilling uses unusual camera angles in imitation of Carol Reed.Reasonable story though there are some implausible aspects.

Lots of 1960s jazz-style music sets the tone for this disappointingly run-of-the-mill crime noir from John Gilling. Janine Gray works for a jeweller in London's famous Hatton Garden when she falls victim to a robbery that kills her boss and leaves her unconscious. She awakens with amnesia and in panic goes into hiding - not just from the pursuing police, but also from her boyfriend (Dyson Lovell) who is mixed up with the thieves. In her confusion, she encounters a boxer - Glyn Houston - who takes a shine to her and gives her shelter whilst she begins to piece it all together. It has more action - including a boxing match - than many of it's British counterparts and the acting is solid enough; but nothing much new to see here...

I don't remember having already watched this film before, though it is in my collection. I understand why, when I see it now, there is really nothing special, despite its obvious qualities. The story is not that riveting, tense or hard boiled. Just a good time waster from a director who became famous for some adventure and horror films in the sixties and fifties. This one, I doubt anyone rememebers it in John Gilling's filmography and career. It reminds us that he was also a crime film provider, but mostly in the fifties, not the sixties. I am glad, however, to have seen it again. It remains a good film.

By the end of John Billing's 1963 Neo Noir PANIC, a has-been boxer, who just got a pounding in the ring, is about to be killed by a punk crook in a back alley, and what climaxes into a sparse b-movie was quite complicated, even surreal, beginning with what should have been an easy jewelry office heist that morphs into the most hackneyed plot device ever...

And bad old amnesia's thrust upon lead ingenue Janine Gray, the secretary where the diamond got swiped by a gang plotted by her boyfriend played by an edgy, James Cagney-looking, trumpet-playing loser Dyson Lovell as Johnny, sending two goons including JUNGLE GIRLS lowlife Brian Weske and a mug-faced Stanley Meadows...

But PANIC only seems to be about these seedy crooks until the entire plot deliberately derails into a nighttime odyssey by amnesiac ingenue Janine Gray as Janine, who, like ODD MAN OUT, becomes an unwitting post-heist victim of street-life circumstance, happening upon an eclectic lot ranging from a lusty landlord and a deranged Beatnik painter...

And then something, or rather, someone happens, and it's that heart-of-gold palooka who winds up saving the girl from rowdy jerks in a swing cafe and, while he's about fifteen years older, their lack of romantic chemistry makes for an endearing friendship the mazy story almost completely settles into, and for once the audience has real human beings to genuinely care about, ramping-up suspense when that aforementioned climax nears.