1960-12-20
N/A
84 min
Three criminals plan to break out of prison the day before their release in order to carry out a daring jewel robbery, intending to establish the perfect alibi by returning to jail afterwards. First however they must get out, a task made more difficult by a new, stricter prison officer.
I was never an huge fan of Peter Sellers's films, but this one works quite well. Incarcerated, he is living the life of Riley with his two cellmates during Her Majesty's pleasure when their erstwhile colleague (a bit more of a substantial part for the engaging Wilfred Hyde-White) dressed as a parson arrives to pay them a spiritual visit. It's at this rendezvous that he informs "Dodger" (PS) of his plan for them to escape from prison just long enough to steal a fortune in diamonds then escape back in - for the perfect alibi! He and his pals "Jelly" (David Lodge) and "Lennie" (Bernard Cribbins) think it is all a pipe dream, especially when the rather hapless, gardening, prison governor (Maurice Denham) finds he has a new chief warden in the form of disciplinarian "Crout" (Lionel Jeffries) - a man determined to tighten things up a bit around this rather casually run jail. What now ensues is a series of fun escapades that I could easily see proving inspirational to the forthcoming BBC "Porridge" series. Jeffries and Denham provide strong support as the story, daft as it is, allows some fun characters to develop and for the writing to provide some dialogue and scenarios that raise the odd smile. Personally, I was just a little disappointed by the denouement - but as crime capers go, this is actually quite fun and is still worth a watch.
