STANLEY BAKER AND TOM BELL SNEAK THROUGH 'A PRIZE OF ARMS'

Title: A PRIZE OF ARMS Director: Cliff Owen Year: 1963 Rating: ****1/2

The most suspenseful parts from the final act of THE GREAT ESCAPE a year after A PRIZE OF ARMS and the middle of the original decade-later STAR WARS entails hiding in plain site, behind enemy lines while wearing their uniforms and keeping everything in perfect surreptitious motion, without getting noticed and thus, caught and captured... 

Which ARMS is, practically from beginning to end, epitomizing the sparse heist thriller where two British crooks with one German go undercover to politely infiltrate a British military compound before an overseas mission, since the armory will be loaded with cash... all for the taking...

Stanley Baker in A PRIZE OF ARMS with Tom Bell

That's the plan anyway, led by square-jawed/no-nonsense Stanley Baker as a stern ex-officer partnered with British bad boy (and newly-hired wiring expert) Tom Bell, usually fitfully portraying thugs who argue with their superiors...

Herein Bell's volatile thus unpredictable persona enhances an already built-in nervy pace that... directed by veteran Cliff Owen with a story by Nicolas Roeg... has very little downtime as the eclectic trio shuffle through separate sections of the compound — to undo various contraptions for the overall mission to work as a whole...

Stanley Baker in A PRIZE OF ARMS

While surrounded by officers with sudden bulwarks (including Michael Ripper, Stanley Meadows, John Westbrook, John Rees, Garfield Morgan, Anthony Bate and Patrick Magee) they must wind-up in the right place at the ONLY time since every second counts with hardly any room for error...

Ending with how the practice-run prologue began, with cinema's coolest weapon, the flamethrower, but the resulting action's more subtle, providing Baker yet another strong yet vulnerable role while third banana Helmut Schmid, the mellow middleman with his German accent to conceal, solidifies this perfect different kind of criminal trio.

Stanley Baker in A PRIZE OF ARMS

Stanley Baker in A PRIZE OF ARMS

Stanley Baker in A PRIZE OF ARMS

Stanley Baker in A PRIZE OF ARMS with German actor Helmut Schmid

Stanley Baker in A PRIZE OF ARMS

Stanley Baker in A PRIZE OF ARMS

Michael Ripper in A PRIZE OF ARMS

Stanley Baker in A PRIZE OF ARMS with Tom Bell

Stanley Baker in A PRIZE OF ARMS

Sweeney actor Garfield Morgan in A PRIZE OF ARMS

Stanley Baker in A PRIZE OF ARMS with Tom Bell

Helmut Schmid in A PRIZE OF ARMS

Helmut Schmid in A PRIZE OF ARMS with Lynn Furlong

A PRIZE OF ARMS with Stanley Baker and Tom Bell

A PRIZE OF ARMS with Stanley Baker

A PRIZE OF ARMS with Tom Bell

The Woodman pub sign for A PRIZE OF ARMS

Anthony Bate and Michael Ripper in A PRIZE OF ARMS

Stanley Baker and Michael Ripper in A PRIZE OF ARMS

Roddy McMillan scolds Tom Bell in A PRIZE OF ARMS

Stanley Baker in A PRIZE OF ARMS

Stanley Baker in A PRIZE OF ARMS

Stanley Baker in A PRIZE OF ARMS with Tom Baker

A Prize of Arms poster artwork

Tom Bell with Stanley Baker in A PRIZE OF ARMS with German actor Helmut Schmid

A Prize of Arms poster artwork

Stanley Baker in A PRIZE OF ARMS

Tom Bell in A PRIZE OF ARMS

Stanley Baker in A PRIZE OF ARMS

Stanley Baker in A PRIZE OF ARMS with Tom Bell

Stanley Baker in A PRIZE OF ARMS with Tom Bell & Helmut Schmid

Tom Bell in A PRIZE OF ARMS

Stanley Baker in A PRIZE OF ARMS