cult film freak: WILLIAM LUCAS, HAZEL COURT & BILLIE WHITELAW IN 'BREAKOUT'

William Lucas in BREAKOUT Year: 1959 Rates: ***

Yet another cautious, severely unpretentious British heist flick where tight calculation and timing are everything, and, directed by Peter Graham Scott... who'd soon make Hammer's splendid NIGHT CREATURES... this is a Post Noir where the characters discuss more than they actually do while their conversations have a page-turning cadence sans the b-movie pulp...

Making BREAKOUT not very fun but there's another slowburn role for underrated English actor William Lucas (THE BREAK) as a cool, classy and crooked businessman... paired with a spectacle-wearing wolf, seducing the gorgeous wife of the man they're hired to BREAKOUT...

Billie Whitelaw in BREAKOUT

And that's CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN good girl Hazel Court as the token bad girl... But the key player, hired for the risk-taking dirty work, is handsome Lee Patterson, a government paper-pusher on an urgent search for the perfect "drive in and pick up" escape truck, and here director Scott wields palpable 11th hour suspense: especially since our anti-hero has the most to lose with adoring, crime-oblivious wife Billie Whitelaw at home. But other than a pint-sized Irish barfly trucker, deliberately jailed for Patterson to take the wheel, it's Hazel Court's ride...

Had this been more than a sixty-minute dialog-driven programmer, she has the femme fatale potential to seduce BOTH partners (Lucas and the sweet-talking Terence Alexander) whose job's to free a husband she doesn't want or care about. Which, on its own, is NOIR defined: but in 1959 it was a year too late.