The League of Gentlemen (film)

The League Of Gentlemen
British quad poster for The League of Gentlemen
Directed by	Basil Dearden
Written by	John Boland (novel) Bryan Forbes (screenplay)
Produced by	Michael Relph
Starring	Jack Hawkins Nigel Patrick Roger Livesey Bryan Forbes Richard Attenborough
Cinematography	Arthur Ibbetson
Edited by	John D. Guthridge
Music by	Philip Green
Distributed by	Allied Film Makers
Release date	5 April 1960
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

The League of Gentlemen is a 1960 British crime comedy directed by Basil Dearden and starring Jack Hawkins, Nigel Patrick and Richard Attenborough. It was based on the 1958 novel by John Boland and adapted by Bryan Forbes, who also starred in the film. It was made by Allied Film Makers in two months, and distributed by the Rank Organisation.

Plot

A manhole opens at night in an empty street and out climbs Lieutenant-Colonel Norman Hyde (Jack Hawkins) in a dinner suit. He gets into a Rolls-Royce and drives home. There, he prepares seven envelopes, each containing an American crime paperback called The Golden Fleece, half a £5 note and an unsigned invitation from “Co-operative Removals Limited” to lunch at the Café Royal.

He posts the envelopes to former army officers, each in desperate or humiliating circumstances. They all turn up. Hyde dismisses the waiters and introduces himself. He hands out the second halves of the £5 notes and asks their opinion of the novel, in which a robbery is committed by experts. They show little enthusiasm and he expresses surprise given their backgrounds and asks: “You’re all crooks, aren’t you? Of one kind or another”. Touring the table, pouring out brandy, he reveals why they were obliged to leave the British Army and their unenviable present occupations:

• Major Peter Race (Nigel Patrick), a former transport officer who resigned before his black market ring was uncovered in post-World War II Hamburg. He earns a poor living in unlicensed gambling and lives at the YMCA. He prides himself on his breeding and addresses men as “old darling”;

• Major Rupert Rutland-Smith (Terence Alexander) is the hen-pecked husband of a wealthy young woman who delights in pulling his strings because he depends upon her money. She has affairs to which he can only turn a blind eye;

• Captain “Padre” Mycroft (Roger Livesey) was a quartermaster dismissed for public gross indecency. He is now a con-man impersonating vicars and priests; he also enjoys lewd books;

• Captain Martin Porthill (Bryan Forbes) was dishonourably discharged for killing suspected members of EOKA and now works as a piano player and is a kept man to middle-aged women;

• Captain Stevens (Kieron Moore), one-time fascist follower of Oswald Mosley, is a homosexual running a gymnasium. He needs money to pay a blackmailer (male homosexual acts being illegal at the time);

• Captain Frank Weaver (Norman Bird), formerly of a bomb disposal squad, tried defusing a bomb while drunk, killing four of his soldiers. He has been a teetotaller ever since and owns a small shop fixing clocks and watches, living with his garrulous wife (Doris Hare) and aging father-in-law;

• Lieutenant Edward Lexy (Richard Attenborough), a communications specialist dismissed for selling information to the Russians while in Berlin. He runs a struggling repair shop for radios and fruit machines, illegally reducing the payout on the latter on behalf of criminals.

Hyde tells them he has no criminal record himself but does have a grievance for being made redundant by the army after a long career. He intends to rob a bank using the team's skills, with equal shares of £100,000 or more for each man. He asks them to consider his proposal.

Major Race follows Hyde home. He is interested, but warns Hyde to keep an eye on the others. Hyde agrees, yet insists each man receive an equal share because, “the one, sure way to disaster is for someone to get greedy”. Race agrees, smiles, and says Hyde is “losing a friend, but gaining a second-in-command”, "I'll settle for that."

The gang meet under the guise of an amateur dramatic society rehearsing Journey’s End to discuss the plan before moving into Hyde’s house and living a military regime of duties and fines, £100 to £500, to be deducted from the haul. Hyde knows that a million pounds in used notes is regularly delivered to a City of London bank and has details of the delivery. What they need now is equipment to pull off the robbery.

They raid an army training camp in Dorset for arms and supplies. Hyde, Mycroft, Porthill and Race distract soldiers by posing as senior officers on an unscheduled food inspection. The others steal weapons while posing as telephone repairmen, speaking in Irish accents to divert suspicion to the IRA.

After that they use a rented warehouse to prepare. Race steals transport including cars and a truck and false number plates are made. In Hyde’s basement, the gang train with maps and models, disturbed by the chance passing of a policeman who offers to keep an eye on their premises as he patrols. On the eve of the operation, Hyde destroys the plans and sighs, reminded of his days of military glory. The robbery is bloodless and precise. Using smoke bombs, sub-machine guns and radio jamming equipment, the gang raids the bank, near St Paul’s. The loot is seized without serious injury and the robbers escape. At Hyde’s house, celebrations are interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Hyde’s old friend, Brigadier “Bunny” Warren (Robert Coote), who drunkenly recalls the old days. One by one the members leave carrying money filled suitcases. Then the telephone rings: Hyde is told that police and soldiers surround the house.

Leading the police is Superintendent Wheatlock (Ronald Leigh-Hunt) from whom Hyde learns the flaw in his plan. A small boy outside the bank had been collecting car registration (licence plate) numbers, a common hobby at the time. The police, discovering the number, found it had been noted by the policeman who visited the warehouse, who had also noted the number of Hyde's own car. Thus a link was formed between the robbery and Hyde.

Hyde is escorted to a Black Maria in which the League of Gentlemen are, “all present and correct”, each having been captured as they left the house.

Cast

• Jack Hawkins as Lieutenant-Colonel Norman Hyde
• Nigel Patrick as Major Peter Race
• Roger Livesey as Captain "Padre" Mycroft
• Richard Attenborough as Lieutenant Edward Lexy
• Bryan Forbes as Captain Martin Porthill
• Kieron Moore as Captain Stevens
• Terence Alexander as Major Rupert Rutland-Smith
• Norman Bird as Captain Frank Weaver
• Robert Coote as Brigadier "Bunny" Warren
• Melissa Stribling as Peggy
• Nanette Newman as Elizabeth Rutland-Smith
• Lydia Sherwood as Hilda
• Doris Hare as Molly Weaver

• David Lodge as C.S.M.
• Patrick Wymark as Wylie
• Gerald Harper as Captain Saunders
• Brian Murray as Private "Chunky" Grogan
• Terence Edmond as Young PC (uncredited)
• Nigel Green as Kissing Man (uncredited)
• Patrick Jordan as Sergeant (uncredited)
• Dinsdale Landen as Young man in gym (uncredited)
• Ronald Leigh-Hunt as Police Superintendent (uncredited)
• Oliver Reed as Chorus Boy (uncredited)
• Norman Rossington as Staff Sergeant Hall (uncredited)
• Bruce Seton as AA Patrolman (uncredited)
• Basil Dearden as Blackmailer (uncredited)

Production

Allied Film Makers was a short-lived production company founded by Dearden, actors Hawkins, Forbes and Attenborough and producer Michael Relph. Forbes contributed many of the company's scripts. Dearden had previously directed The Blue Lamp.

The portrait of Hyde's wife (he comments "I regret to say the bitch is still going strong") is a close copy of a portrait of Deborah Kerr which was used in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp in which Roger Livesey (The League's "Padre" Mycroft) also starred.

Forbes points out in his commentary on the DVD that in most films of the time Hyde's wife would be described as dead and not dismissed in such as manner. A scene in the script following the dinner party has Hyde, followed by Race, visiting a teenage girl at school — her photo is also on his desk. It is implied that she is his daughter. A scene which did not make the film has Weaver the teetotaller reaching for the brandy after Hyde has left the dinner. Lexy reminds him he shouldn't but Weaver drinks anyway.

In the original script, Race addressed others as "old dear".

Cary Grant was offered the part of Hyde but turned it down.

Reception

The film was the sixth most popular movie at the British box office in 1960.

Home Media

The film was included, along with three other Dearden films, as part of the box set Basil Dearden’s London Underground by the Criterion Collection

In 2006, a restored version of the film was released as a special edition DVD in the UK. The extras include a South Bank Show documentary on Attenborough and a pdf version of Forbes' original script. An audio commentary for the film was provided by Forbes and his wife Nanette Newman who features in the film as Major Rutland-Smith's wife.

External links

• Analysis of the film
• The League of Gentlemen at IMDb
• Criterion Collection Essay

• Reviewed on the Mystery*File blog.
• A discussion of The Post-War British Caper Film on the Mystery*File blog by Tise Vahimagi.