The Big Job (film)
| The Big Job | |
|---|---|
.jpg) UK theatrical poster | |
| Directed by | Gerald Thomas |
| Written by | John Antrobus Talbot Rothwell |
| Produced by | Frank Bevis Peter Rogers |
| Starring | Sid James Dick Emery Joan Sims Sylvia Syms Jim Dale Lance Percival Edina Ronay |
| Cinematography | Alan Hume |
| Edited by | Rod Nelson-Keys |
| Music by | Eric Rogers |
| Distributed by | Warner-Pathé Distributors |
Release date | 1965 |
Running time | 85 min. |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
The Big Job is a British comedy film which was released in 1965.[1] It stars Sid James, Dick Emery, Joan Sims, Sylvia Syms, Jim Dale and Lance Percival.
The Big Job shares its cast and production team with the Carry On films, but the film is not officially part of the Carry On series. The film was photographed in black and white, while the Carry On films from the mid 1960s are in colour.[2]
Plot
England, 1950. A gang of robbers led by the self-proclaimed George 'The Great' Brain (Sid James) rob a bank, stealing £50,000. However, due to a mix-up, they are pursued and caught by the police. He manages to stash away the money in the trunk of a hollow tree, before he is collared. The gang are then sentenced to serve fifteen years in Wormwood Scrubs prison.
Upon their release in 1965, the gang go back to the spot where they had left the money, only to find it is now a new town, and a housing estate has been built around the tree. To their chagrin they find that the tree is now in the grounds of the local police station, invitingly close to the wall. George and his gang take up rooms in a nearby house rented by a widow and her daughter. In order to provide a respectable front, George is forced to marry his longtime girlfriend Myrtle Robbins (Sylvia Syms) who is not so enamoured about the idea of recovering the loot, and wants George to settle down with her.
The incompetent criminals fail in their numerous attempts to get over and under the wall, all the while trying to conceal their true activities from their landlady, her daughter and a local police constable (Jim Dale) who also stays there. Eventually when the men have botched an attempt to tunnel into the grounds, the frustrated women hatch their own plot to gain the money.
Cast list
- Sid James as George 'The Great' Brain
- Sylvia Syms as Myrtle Robbins
- Dick Emery as Frederick 'Booky' Binns
- Joan Sims as Mildred Gamely
- Lance Percival as Timothy 'Dipper' Day
- Jim Dale as Harold
- Deryck Guyler as Police Sergeant
- Edina Ronay as Sally Gamely
- Reginald Beckwith as Register Office Official
- Michael Ward as Undertaker
- Brian Rawlinson as Henry Blobbitt
- David Horne as Judge
- Frank Forsyth as Bank Cashier
- Frank Thornton as Bank Official
- Wanda Ventham as Dot Franklin
Critical reception
Time Out wrote, "this 'unofficial' Carry On reproduces the familiar formula of its virtually institutionalised predecessors."[3]
Filming locations
Interiors: Pinewood Studios, Buckinghamshire
'The Crown' public house, Silver Hill, Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire......(The bank)
Fulmer and Bracknell.......(Residential and town streets)
Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire......(Country lanes)
See also
- Blue Streak, a 1999 movie with a similar plot