cult film freak: WILLIAM LUCAS & JOHN RUTLAND WEATHER 'CALCULATED RISK'

William Lucas in CALCULATED RISK Year: 1963 Rating: ***1/2

Low-budget thriller has THE BREAK baddie and overall capable British New Wave actor William Lucas in CALCULATED RISK, a hybrid of THE ASPHALT JUNGLE as a newly-released older short guy has big plans for a big heist (John Rutland doing Sam Jaffe) and LARCENY INC since they must dig through a pair of locations to reach the targeted goal...

Which aren't stores but bombed-out houses from twenty-years past, leading to a lucrative bank vault while Lucas, as a sophisticated yet crooked businessman (like ASPHALT backer Louis Calhern), who really doesn't need the bread (unlike Calhern and more like shifty Marc Lawrence), heads up a group of thugs resembling dockyard barflies...

William Lucas in CALCULATED RISK with Terence Cooper

Yet for two-way eye-candy's sake, the tallest, most handsome (Terence Cooper as the Sterling Hayden muscle type) has a quick hookup with adorable local girl-next-door Dilys Watling...

Also peripheral is Warren Mitchell, stealing his one scene providing random exposition and, within the main gang's heavy-lifting phase, not much happens to intriguingly distinguish each crook's task (except that the initial idea-man's health has him sit it out)... Instead what's really important is WHEN the heist takes place...

Dilys Watling and Terence Cooper in CALCULATED RISK

During England's infamous Winter of/Big Freeze of 1963, where CALCULATED composer George Martin (just starting work with The Beatles) makes ample use of an icy-sounding harpsichord... and while the Noirish atmosphere is palpably sparse and bleak for the location it's not quite claustrophobic or suspenseful enough for the crime...

Which ultimately includes an actual buried buzz-bomb that may be active, and there's very little time left before... the movie's run-time is up because, after all, this RISK is merely a programmer albeit an historically-documented one.