The Frightened City (1961)

Penned by the little known Leigh Vance and the director John Lemont who also produced the film, Frightened City gets off to a strong start with a vehicular murder (although this is unconnected to the storyline) and a more relevant scene of a protection racket mob trashing a bar - settling the scene and quickly introducing the notion of the business owners being too afraid to talk to the police (hence the film's title). As can be seen, from the very start the script more closely resembles a traditional American gangster film than the social-realist crime movies that were becoming popular in Britain during the 1960s. This is particularly evident in the lack of a 'home life' for any of the characters, aside from a few oblique references, and the primary focus being on the criminal side (most of the British crime films of the era would focus on both sides of the law).

The dialogue throughout is noticably strong - particularly in the scenes with the accountant Waldo Zhernikov who views the whole criminal operation as simply another business opportunity. The way that Paddy's character is presented is also very interesting, seeing himself as a 'straight thief' compared to the violent new mobsters who are now dominating the criminal scene. Unfortunately the addition of the police characters seems to be rather perfunctory, as though they were added into the script at a later stage - they seem to pop up randomly and know far more than they should be able to about the lead characters. The film does build up nicely with a variety of unpredictable twists and turns to a rather unsurprising climax that ultimately seems rather cliché and tame compared to how the film began and the ending would be a lot more interesting if the relevant character had been properly developed.

John Lemont does a decent job with the direction with a few moments of flair - however the film does rather suffer from a lack of location shots that added so much atmosphere to many of the other British Crime films of the era. Although the setting is nominally London it does resemble more of an Anytown for much of the runtime. The soundtrack from Norrie Paramor fits the film perfectly and really helps to set the mood.

Herbert Lom was a familiar face in British cinema of the 1950s and 1960s, usually playing a foreign character to explain his strong accent, this is no exception and as expected he gives a strong performance in a well cast role. Sean Connery does nothing to disguise or explain his accent and seems rather too clean cut to be a career criminal, but plays the part as well as he can. War movie regular John Gregson, however, is very poorly cast as Detective Sayers - he never convinces at all as a rule-breaking police officer and is a major factor in the entire police storyline being ineffective. A selection of character actors fill the remaining roles, look out for the Brit-horror regular Yvonne Romain (mother of the beast in Hammer's Curse of the Werewolf (1961)) as Anya.

Starting off well and with a largely strong script, coupled with two good lead performances, Frightened City sadly does not live up to the better British crime entries from the era and is let down horribly by the awkwardly written and poorly acted police sub-plot. While of interest to fans of the genre it does not come recommended and other titles will make a better starting point.

All text in this review written by Timothy Young - 2nd February 2008.
Text from this review not to be used without authorization.

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