MovieChat Forums > The League of Gentlemen (1961) Discussion > DVD in Eclipse Series 25, coming 1/25/11

DVD in Eclipse Series 25, coming 1/25/11


The League of Gentlemen is one of four films included in Criterion's upcoming box set, Basil Dearden's London Underground, arriving January 25, 2011. List price $59.99.

The other titles are Sapphire, Victim and All Night Long. All long awaited, and an excellent collection.

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I just bought this for a quid at a charity shop - its one of my all-time favs.
Ollie Reed as a screaming queen is bloody hilarious!

"The internet is for lonely people. People should live." Charlton Heston

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I take it you mean a UK DVD, Os, not this US set! But it is a great film. Definitely not to be confused with the unrelated but atrocious namesake of a few years back.

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Actually it was Dutch, it had foreign writing on the cover but you could change the language to English. A right bargain for a quid I'd say!

"The internet is for lonely people. People should live." Charlton Heston

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And you questioned my Spanish SOTI, even at 23 quid!!

What's "The League of Gentlemen" in Dutch, anyway? "Het Boundjes vaan Meijnherren" or some other fake name?!

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After careful perusal of the cover - I now think its from Germany, hob!

"The internet is for lonely people. People should live." Charlton Heston

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"Das Bund von Herren"? Good God!

You know, in Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief, the line where Cary Grant tells John Williams that his housekeeper "once strangled a German general" was changed in the German-dubbed version to, "She once was a lion-tamer in the circus"! Wonder how the Germans reacted to a movie about ex-British WWII officers planning a heist? Probably got smug self-satisfaction about their own honest burgher work ethic!

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Hahaha hob, very good mate!

"Die Herren Einbrecher Geben Sich Die Ehre" is the title on the cover. The picture quality isn't too bad either - well worth a quid anyway.

"The internet is for lonely people. People should live." Charlton Heston

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So they're trying to get their honor, eh? Close enough to what I thought.

I'm surprised there isn't a good UK edition of this film...although if I recall there was one, no longer in print. I believe there was a US edition years back, also now out of print, but this Basil Dearden set is very good. I bought it primarily for Sapphire, but all the films are great.

Dearden was a versatile filmmaker, and deserves to be better known. I wish they'd put The Blue Lamp out here in the States. But I do have an R2 disc. Have you seen that one, OSK? It was criticized at the time (1950) as "too American" by the British press! Which probably accounted for its huge popularity in Britain.

Incidentally, Dearden was killed in a car accident in 1971 on the M4 near Brentford. My wife tells me a lot of people have been killed on that carriageway (such a quaint term you people have), which she claims is the deadliest in the UK. I'm really not very happy whenever she drives us over that stretch of road!

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Oh boy, hob, have I seen "The Blue Lamp" - only about 500 times. It plays regularly on the telly over here. I love it, too. Any 1950s British movie filmed on location is okay by me.
Haven't seen "Sapphire" for a while though, it was on the telly many years ago in a season of films that had created controversy for one reason or another. It concerned racism I think, and had a splendid ott technicolor-look about it (or am I confusing it with another movie of the same period starring John Mills?).

"The internet is for lonely people. People should live." Charlton Heston

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No, you're right on both counts.

Sapphire (1959) was in color (in fact it's the lone color film in this US box set), but it starred Nigel Patrick, one of my favorite British actors of the 50s.

The John Mills movie you're thinking of is Flame in the Streets, a 1961 film where he's a union leader whose politics are put to the test when his daughter decides to marry a West Indian immigrant. It ends in a race riot. It was also in color.

I know there was a UK DVD around ten years ago that had both films in a double feature, but it's out of print. I had never seen Flame until it came out on DVD here a few months back and I bought it sight unseen. It's okay, but I agree with the rather mixed reviews it received. It loses its focus and despite some brutal dialogue in spots fails to really connect on the issues it's attempting to raise. It's basically a somewhat tedious melodrama with a sprinkling of race to give it a patina of "social relevancy". Sapphire is infinitely better.

Also, for me, as an outsider, I enjoy the look and feel of London, and British society, at the close of the 1950s, as they're depicted in Sapphire. Plus it's interesting to see a British take on your own "race problems", an issue that has bedeviled the United States far longer, far more pervasively, and oft times in far harsher, even deadlier, ways, given our history.

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Hey, thanks for that hob, you've cleared up my confusing the two British movies about race probs in the UK.
And you are correct about "Sapphire" being superior to the Mills thing, but I like John Mills a lot and catch anything he's in.

I once saw a William Shatner cheapo movie about US racism and I found it very shocking. It seemed very realistic and I reckon it was the best thing Shatner ever appeared in. Can't think what it was called, but it was b/w and looked to be a second feature B-movie.

"The internet is for lonely people. People should live." Charlton Heston

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The Shatner movie was called The Intruder (1962). It's on DVD in the States. Shatner played a Ku Klux Klansman who arrives in a small town (location undisclosed) to stir up race hatred and promote the KKK. It was produced and directed by Roger Corman, of all people, and is unique in his oeuvre: it's the only film Corman ever made that lost money! But it's the one he's proudest of. It was pretty good.

Today is Thanksgiving Day here in the U.S., so my wife is being subjected to her third such holiday since she came to live here. Her mother and several of her friends in England have sent her Thanksgiving greetings -- apparently wishing they could join in the dinner!

And, of course, today (11/22/12, or by your lights, 22/11/12) is the 49th anniversary of an event you're very well aware of. Fifty years next year. Think of it.

Happy Thursday!

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Yep, 49 years ago hob, and they are still inventing all sorts of crap about it!
"The Intruder" really surprised and shocked me when I saw it many moons ago - the racism in your country in the 50s and 60s was much much worse than what we experienced in the uk. And now you have a mixed raced POTUS!
You lot have come a long way since the 60s, hob.

"The internet is for lonely people. People should live." Charlton Heston

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Unhappily the racism in our country was pervasive long before the 1950s and 60s, starting with slavery and staying with us since. The KKK (since we were talking about The Intruder) was originally formed in 1866 as a terrorist organization of ex-Confederates who rode through the southern countryside at night beating and killing newly-freed blacks to keep them "in their place". It was suppressed by the Federal government then but was resurrected in 1915 and hit its apex in the 20s, when it boasted a membership of over 4 million nationwide.

It was not strictly a southern organization: it had active chapters around the country, and guess what, Os -- its New York headquarters was in the very town we live in, Yaphank (pronounced "YAP-hank", not "ph" as an "f") on Long Island. (When Al Smith, the Governor of NY and a Roman Catholic, was the Democratic nominee for President in 1928, the Klan not only burned crosses in places like Oklahoma, they did so right here in Suffolk County, Long Island, which sent the only member of the NY delegation to the 1924 and 1928 conventions who was anti-Smith. Suffolk at that time was very insular and filled with small-town farmers and "baymen" who hated Smith's native New York City and the Catholics, Jews and immigrants in it.)

The KKK associated with the dominant political party in each state, though it was mainly a problem for the Democrats because the South at that time was one-party Democratic. In fact, the 1924 Democratic convention in New York City split bitterly over whether to adopt a plank condemning the Klan by name. Thanks to the intimidation of a few anti-Klan southern delegates, the plank lost by 1 vote (out of over 1200). But the most glaring such domination of a political party was in Indiana, where as one historian put it, the Klan "simply swallowed the GOP": in 1924, the Republicans swept the state, and every statewide elected official from the Governor on down, and most of the legislature, were either Klansmen or were aligned to the Klan. But a rape-murder scandal involving the head of the Indiana Klan in 1925 caused the organization to implode, and it dragged down all the Republicans elected as Klan supporters in 1924, and nationally the Klan declined precipitously thereafter.

Anyway, suffice to say that the civil rights movement galvanized the organization, which had again revived after WWII, and led to very public opposition. In 1946 U.S. Senator from Mississippi gave a radio address telling white voters to "visit" blacks (he didn't say "blacks") the night before the election to keep them from voting, and a Mississippi Congressman at that time called a Jewish colleague from New Yrok a *beep* on the House floor. But of course the KKK was only one part of the racist scene then. Throughout the South there were White Citizens Councils and the like, supposedly a "respectable" alternative to the thuggish Klan, and southern politicians fed the hysteria making racist speeches.

It's hard to imagine, now, that Eisenhower had to send Federal troops in to enforce court-ordered integration in the Little Rock schools in 1957. Privately, Ike was opposed to integration of schools, as he had been against integrating the armed forces, which Truman accomplished by executive order in 1947. After the Supreme Court struck down laws mandating segregated schools in 1954, the President, at a private White House dinner, commiserated with Chief Justice Earl Warren, whom Ike had appointed, asking him, "Can't you understand why some mother wouldn't want her sweet little blond-haired girl sitting next to some big black buck in the classroom?"

Of course, it was more than just the KKK, and there was discrimination against Jews, Hispanics, and just about everyone else you can name, in our great "melting pot". The sad part is that, the election of a black/biracial President notwithstanding, Obama's election has ramped up the level of dormant racism in this country. Tea Party rallies have featured lots of racist signs and slogans attacking Obama. Various Republican officials have made racist comments, such as the Treasurer of the Orange County (California) GOP, who compared Michelle Obama to an ape, refused her own chairman's demand she resign and was backed by her party organization; or the chairman of the Maine GOP, who recently said Obama won the state only because mysterious black people showed up to vote in rural counties where they didn't live, which is preposterous and which he was forced to take back.

That's only two of dozens of such instances. Since Obama's reelection hundreds of thousands of southerners have signed petitions asking to secede from the United States, and the number of racist tweets coming from the deep South spiked the day after the election. A county judge in Lubbock, Texas, went on TV a few days ago to say that he expected Obama to send in troops to insure that Lubbock County enforced Federal laws the judge didn't like, and that he intended to meet them at the county line with a tank and the local sheriff's department. Of course, southerners deny that any of this is racist -- it's all about states' rights...just as it was concerns about the Constitution, not -- Heaven forbid! -- racism that led them to decades-long violent resistance to civil rights laws, integration, voting rights for blacks, and so forth. The old one-party, racist Democratic South has been replaced by a one-party racist Republican South, and the degree of racist statements about Obama, including from supposedly responsible people in the GOP, across the country, is frankly mind-boggling in this day and age.

My apologies for the lengthy disquisition (you know me!), but if anything Obama's election has only made the "race problem" in the US more blatant. The North and West have little problem with him, but the South and a few other spots surely do. They'd have voted against him even if he was white, since his policies are too liberal for most southerners, but the racial context has pumped up the size and virulence of the Republican vote and torn away the thin veneer of civility that masked the still-rampant racism in much of this country.

I never thought I'd live to see a black President, and I'm proud it has happened (and of course I voted for him), but the truth is we as Americans still have a long way to go.

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I'm watching it now (first viewing). Very good and very enjoyable!

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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Hey, I'm glad you're watching it, MEQ! It's really a neat film -- a more sophisticated version, in its way, of Sinatra's Ocean's 11 that same year. I'd like to hear what you think after seeing it all.

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I thought that it was terrific. Such a neat and clever movie! Kind of similar to The Asphalt Jungle, but the heist was more complex and we don't get the same glimpse into their personal lives. I loved the ending.

The ending makes me think of some of those inverted murder mysteries which I've read in the past. We find out early on who is the killer, and then we see how the killer gives himself away. This movie follows that pattern completely, except that, of course, there is no murder.

I'm glad that it was filmed in black and white, not in color.

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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Yes, a good assessment, and knowing your liking for mystery-crime-noir films, your comparisons are quite apt.

Of course, this film is a bit lighter than most such similar movies, tongue-in-cheek to a point, yet with an underlying bitterness that reflects some of the disillusionment that permeated much of postwar England.

You might want to consider getting this Eclipse set containing TLOG. Basil Dearden was an extremely good director and writer who worked in many genres. In my opinion, two of the the other films in this set are excellent: Sapphire, the only one in color, a great murder mystery/social comment film, about the killing of a young black girl passing as white, and Victim, a ground-breaking b&w film about a barrister being blackmailed for being a homosexual. The fourth film, All Night Long is an adaptation of Othello set in a London jazz club and features an interracial romance, also unusual for its time, but while it's good it's not quite as outstanding as the others. But the set is well worth it, especially if you can get it a half price during one of Criterion's 50%-off sales.

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Thanks, hobnob!

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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Bryan Forbes, who co-wrote, co-produced and co-starred in this film, just died in 2013 at 86.

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RIP.

All the actors in this movie did such a terrific job. They were perfectly cast!

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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Hey, hobnob, I watched this film again just now, and there is one thing that's puzzling me. Near the end, how did Bunny get into the house, what with the cops being all over the place? Bunny wasn't working with the cops. How is it that he was allowed inside?

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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I think Bunny came along just before the cops showed up, and, bit of a blockhead that he was, got caught up innocently in the police dragnet.

The manner in which the gang is caught makes for good story-telling, but in fact I think the cops would simply knock on the door and arrest them all in one fell swoop, rather than chance any of them slipping away before they got there, or sneaking out by some unguarded route.

If this film were made today the gang would undoubtedly be allowed to get away with their loot. I think most people back then wanted them to "win", but the censorship of the time, even in Britain, required that crooks not get away with their schemes.

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Nope, Bunny couldn't have come before the cops showed up. That's because some of the crooks left before he arrived, and the cops had to have been there already in order to arrest them.

I agree that it wasn't a practical way of arresting them, but it was very amusing. I have images of those guys walking out one after the other and being snatched up by a cop.

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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That's right, so my answer is amended as follows: the police allowed anybody to go into the house because for all they knew such a person would probably have been a member of the gang. As we saw they were hidden out of sight so that they could nab the departing gang members without fuss, or alarm anyone just exiting the house by having them see them grabbing someone who'd left a few moments earlier. That would explain how Bunny got in without seeing anything amiss outside, why the cops let him enter and why they scooped him up as well.

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Hmmm...yes, excellent point! I never thought of that. You are correct.

Thanks, hobnob!

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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As you say in bilingual Canada, "Correct? Moi?"



Hey! Wouldn't this movie be the perfect one for you to speak on your topic of certain people being nice gentlemen?

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Well, I'm not so sure that those guys were true Gentlemen, but I do like the fact that the word was used in the movie's title and numerous times throughout the movie.

Happy New Year to you, hobnob! Keep in touch, if you wish!

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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Well, I certainly can't claim to be in their league.

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Oh, you're better than any of'em! You're a True Gentleman of the Boards.

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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I watched this movie tonight (third time in a week), and it still seems that there is something not quite right about the ending. Okay, so the cops let Bunny into the house and arrested him later. However, I find it strange that Bunny didn't spot any of the cops on his way to the house. They weren't THAT well hidden. The cop van was in plain sight. Wouldn't Bunny have gotten suspicious?

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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Well, two thoughts:

First, Bunny was an extremely obtuse individual. He didn't seem the type to know his nose was attached to his face. He could probably have walked into a policeman on the steps and not thought anything about it.

And second, well, it's a movie. They seldom conform with real life human experiences. Anyway, I think the cops were hidden well enough for purposes of the film.

Say, where are you watching this so many times -- on YouTube? A DVD? The CBC wouldn't be broadcasting it this many times in one week, would they? (Although, back in the 60s, Million Dollar Movie on independent Channel 9 in NYC normally ran its weekly feature 16 times in one week: twice each weeknight, and three times each on Saturday & Sunday. Those were the days.)

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You're probably right about Bunny.

I know it's only a movie. It's just that so much of it was so carefully thought out that I was a bit surprised at the "sloppiness" of the ending. Although I still say that the ending was terrific (plot holes aside). Normally I don't notice plot holes, nor do I care about them.

I borrowed a copy from someone. That's how I was able to see this movie 3 times in a week.

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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Sounds like you wore down the DVD!

I really never thought the ending was "sloppy", not even a plot hole. I don't regard it as particularly realistic, and logically it doesn't make much sense as a way cops would make an arrest. It was just an entertaining cinematic conceit, neatly handled, not sloppy, but not very convincing when you think about it.

I love plot holes. They're fun, and make you think more about the movie. Some people just look at them as an excuse for an easy laugh but in fact any serious discussion about a film should include any plot holes as a way of making you think about and delve more deeply into the movie.

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It was a very good way of finishing the movie. One after the other, they walk out and they get arrested. For awhile there, it really looked like they were going to get away with it...In fact, I even thought that maybe somehow the director got permission to let these guys get away with it. He seemed to "break" a lot of rules by letting some swearing plus homosexuality be included in this film.

Have you seen the sixties version of The Pink Panther? I still wonder how the director managed to get away with such an ending. And that movie came out only a few years after this one!

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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Was there another version of The Pink Panther besides the 1964 one? I don't mean sequels. Anyway, I have seen it, and it may have begun the idea of someone getting away with their crime. Today that's standard stuff, but back then crooks could never get away with their foul deed. Even in Britain that was the case, and as you say this is pretty odd considering the homosexual theme beneath portions of this film, since homosexual activity was illegal in the UK into the 70s I believe.

Director Basil Dearden got directly into the gay theme with his next movie, Victim, about a barrister being blackmailed over being gay, and dealt with racism both before (in Sapphire) and after (All Night Long) this film. So his inability to allow the gang to get away with their crime is pretty amazing considering what he could depict.

Today the gang would certainly get away with it. But I believe we discussed all this earlier on this thread.

By the way, thank you very much for your kind tribute to my alleged "gentlemanliness" a few posts back! Aw, schucks, Miss Ellie!

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There were some Pink Panther movies which came out about 7 or 8 years ago. I saw the first of those and I don't remember it at all.

Oh yes, we did discuss the Pink Panther movies some time ago on another board, hobnob.

You're welcome for the compliment. Hey, feel free to keep in touch over PMs any time you wish. Don't worry, I haven't told anyone what you have been sending me.

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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Don't worry, I haven't told anyone what you have been sending me.


Jeez, MEQ, you make me sound like a serial pervert!!

Yet you still want to PM, I see....

Did we discuss The Pink Panther elsewhere? I don't remember. I was referring to the rather strange film censorship of yesteryear that allowed for frank discussions of homosexuality and race but still insisted that crime mustn't pay.

Have a good night, talk to you soon....

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I think we discussed the year of release of The Pink Panther somewhere, but I can't remember where. Someone on the classics board pointed out that it was released in the States in '64, but elsewhere in '63. I know that someone there said that the movie has a post-JFK-assassination feel to it.

Good night, and feel free to PM me if you have spare time. No, I didn't mean to make you sound like serial pervert....giggle. Your PMs aren't like that at all.

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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Here I'd like to recommend a similar film: Gambit (1966).

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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Gambit is a good movie. I own it and can second your recommendation. But I don't agree that it's at all similar to The League of Gentlemen, other than very broadly or generically speaking, in the sense it's also a caper/heist film. The types of characters, set-up, specifics of the plot and resolution are entirely dissimilar. The two are really not at all alike -- which is a good thing. Who wants just another version of the same thing?

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Well, what I meant by "similar film" is that, in each case, someone comes up with a perfect caper and things start to go wrong. I agree that the types of characters were very different, as were the endings. But I do love those stories in which someone has the idea for a perfect crime and it turns out not to be so perfect after all. There is always something that they overlook.

I was quite amused at how, in Gambit, the plot worked so perfectly in the guy's mind when Shirley MacLaine kept her mouth shut. In reality, when she talked, the crook didn't have it so easy. But she did save his skin later, so he had nothing to whine about.

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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Yes, which is why I said they were similar only in a very broad sense. Lots and lots of pictures start with someone plotting the perfect crime and seeing it screwed up. That's nothing new and in itself unremarkable in terms of similarity. No one designs a caper to deliberately fail!

The first time I saw Gambit Shirley's resolute silence (and pliability, doing whatever she was told) drove me crazy...until I saw where it led!

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That was my impression, too. I couldn't figure out at first why she was keeping silent. I thought that maybe the moviemakers were trying to go for the "I'm so important because I came up with such a gimmick" type of deal, but turns out that the silence was extremely effective.

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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Gambit's filmmakers wanted to portray the principle plotter (Michael Caine) as smug and overconfident, a know-it-all who believes himself brilliant and infallible and is of course neither. He simply assumes everything will go as planned. In this the movie worked terrifically. Not a great film but a very enjoyable one.

In The League of Gentlemen Jack Hawkins wasn't smug but believed everything would work out provided his crew maintained discipline. He was constantly on them while Caine took cooperation for granted. Plus Caine didn't scope out his target at all properly, as you can see from his description of his plan. Hawkins did. He just made a mistake, and there was no "gentlewoman" to save him from it.

TLOG reminds me in some ways of Quentin Tarantino's first hit, Reservoir Dogs, in that both involve someone bringing together a bunch of disparate men mostly unknown to one another who try to pull off the perfect job, but who are undone for many reasons -- unexpected developments not foreseen or planned for, personality problems, and so on. The Asphalt Jungle is very similar, perhaps the textbook film of this kind. It also bears similarities to another 1960 film, Ocean's 11, except that there the men were old army buddies; in League they had all been in the army but didn't know one another.

And in fact I always thought that was a huge weakness in this film's plot. The men should have been depicted as old comrades from the war. Bringing them together with that background would have made a lot more sense -- and been a lot safer and helpful to their project -- than uniting a group of men none of whom knew one another or had ever worked together. That left way too much to chance and at the mercy of personal caprice, mistrust and mistakes.

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Well, I think that both Gambit and The League of Gentlemen are great films.

I haven't seen Ocean's 11.

I tend to compare The Asphalt Jungle to Rififi, although I found the latter to be a bit too violent.

There's also The Honeymoon Machine, a very different sort of crime caper.

Thanks for your comments about the films, BTW!

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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Surprised you haven't seen Ocean's 11. It's an extremely well-known film, starring of course "The Rat Pack" -- Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, etc. -- about a group of WWII army buddies who reunite to pull off heists of the big five Las Vegas casinos. This was in 1960, when the town was a lot smaller and more formal/classy/stylish and not cheap and sleazy. It's much too long and takes a while to get going, and as you might suppose it's fairly sexist, but it's a time capsule of a place and an era and of that bunch. It's basically a comedy, so don't expect any serious dramatics or noir touches (though there are some serious aspects).

The 2001 remake with George Clooney isn't bad but it's a whole different animal. But the original might not be your cup of tea.

If you like Rififi, have you seen Night and the City, a 1950 film by the same director, Jules Dassin? He shot it in England not long before he was blacklisted and moved to Europe permanently. It's a very good crime thriller with Richard Widmark a sleazy operator with big plans, who tries to bust into the London wrestling racket against the local crime boss (Herbert Lom). It's very good and recommended. Avoid the 1992 remake set in New York, just a lot of nothing, even with Robert de Niro.

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Ocean's 11 (the original) does sound very good. I'll try to find it somewhere.

I think that I have seen Night and the City, but I don't remember it at all.

Very unlikely that I'll see the remakes in each case.

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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Ocean's 11 is easy to find but again it is rather dated in its attitudes and definitely about half an hour too long (mostly in the build-up). It was very successful in 1960 and as I said may be most interesting today for the presence of the Pack and to see Vegas as it used to be. Sinatra et al were appearing on stage at I believe the Sands hotel, where they performed every night then filmed by day. No one knew when they slept. It was during filming that one night on stage Sinatra introduced his favorite politician, Senator John F. Kennedy, who was just about to announce his presidential candidacy. There's a filmed record of that event, as well as much of the Pack's casino performances, made simultaneously with their shooting the movie.

You should definitely see Night and the City. I suspect that's one you'd like. Certainly worth seeing once. It also stars Gene Tierney, Hugh Marlowe, Googie Withers, Francis L. Sullivan and Mike Mazurki.

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Since when do I care if a film is "dated"? I'm aware that the film is over 50 years old. I'm not expecting to see people carrying cell phones in the movie.

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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I meant dated in its attitudes.

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Even so....

The only problem I'll likely have with the movie is its length.

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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It isn't so much a question of you personally having (or not having) problems with the film's dated attitudes as simply the fact that these are much more prevalent, more in one's face, than in most films. (Obviously all films date in some way.) Just an observation, no big deal.

Also it isn't the film's length as such that's an issue (at 127 minutes it's not overly long in the scheme of things), but rather the slow and somewhat strained pace of the narrative in the early going. For much of the film's first hour there's a lot of pointless and frankly tedious by-play going on to no real purpose or amusement, most of which could have been condensed or dispensed with. Too much of the film is like a private in-joke for Sinatra and his buds. All that said, it's still worth a look, as a cultural artifact if nothing else.

But you'll see the similarities with The League of Gentlemen and be able to contrast the ways in which each film handled what is basically a broadly similar plot set-up. In my view TLOG is unquestionably the better film overall, but OE has its merits -- and it must be said a great twist ending, much neater than League's somewhat tame if ironic finale.

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I love the endings of both Gambit and The League of Gentlemen. Now I'm curious about the film Ocean's 11 (the original).

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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Well, I'm not going to spoil it for you...so happy viewing, when you get to it. I'll be curious about your take on it.

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I'll provide you with some feedback. Thanks for the recommendation! You're a True Gentleman!

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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Perhaps, but I don't even have a League.

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I should hope not! To wind up like those bad boys wouldn't exactly be a great idea.

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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True, but then the even badder boys in, say, Reservoir Dogs ended up even worse!

However, I'm on safe ground there too, as I also don't own a reservoir. Or, before you ask, an ocean.

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You're funny.

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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I just finished Ocean's 11 (1960). Thanks for the recommendation!

First of all, there was nothing "dated" about it, except that it was dated 1960. I expected to hear that sort of dialogue, to see that sort of clothing, etc. I'm used to films released before 1970. I wasn't expecting to see cell phones.

I agree that the pace in the early part of the film was quite slow and strained. I don't mind if a heist film is done as a drama-heist, as long as it's well done. I found that most of the first 45 minutes was, as you put it, a "private in-joke for Sinatra and his buds". Besides, the characters were a bit dull. I've seen those types in earlier heist films, such as The Asphalt Jungle, but in those films, the acting was much more convincing. In Ocean's 11, it was really all about Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra and their cronies.

I think that The League of Gentlemen is a much better - and more interesting - film than Ocean's 11. Ditto with Rififi, The Asphalt Jungle, and numerous other heist films. I was quite amused by the ending of Ocean's 11. Here I'll provide some spoilers about this ending. I'll use a spoiler tag for those who haven't seen Ocean's 11: One of the characters did warn the others that they don't have the sharp thinking skills which they had back in 1945. He was absolutely right. The move to put the money in with the dead body was unbelievably idiotic. WHAT were they thinking? And then the body just got cremated. Geez. So they all wind up with nothing.

Anyhow, it was an interesting film in some ways...I loved the way the casino looked back then. Somehow, they managed to really capture the early sixties feel, even in that casino. I can't quite explain it.... Not that I was alive back then, so I'm probably just spewing nonsense....

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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Glad you finally saw it. I agree, The League of Gentlemen and the other films you mentioned were much better, certainly as "heist" films. Ocean's 11 basically used the heist aspect as an excuse to put the Rat Pack together at their favorite watering holes in Vegas, to have a good time and tweak their casino owner pals a little. And you also saw how slow the film was in its first half. It was better once it got going, though even then they had a lot of to-ing and fro-ing and had to take time for a couple more pointless cameos (Shirley MacLaine and Red Skelton).

Once again, I seem to have to explain that my comments about it being dated have to do with its sexist attitudes and the guys' behavior. "Cell phones" and the like have nothing to do with it. It doesn't matter what you were or were not expecting, or whether you're used to pre-1970 movies. (They didn't have cell phones in the 70s or 80s either.) Obviously all movies "date" in some way, even period pieces.

But not all movies date equally or in the same ways. In most cases you just roll with, even ignore, period aspects. But in some cases the undertones or attitudes are so glaringly outmoded that the films feel out of touch -- very dated.

Ocean's 11 is I'm afraid one of those. Had it been a straightforward heist movie without all the Pack banter and heavy-handed and overt attitudes it wouldn't have dated, in my opinion. The Asphalt Jungle is ten years older but seems so fresh you have to actually think about its age. The League of Gentlemen was made the same year but again you fall into it without a problem and have to really think about its period aspects. I don't think this is the case with Ocean's 11. It isn't older cars or fashions or the lack of modern cell phones (a poor example, by the way), but something about its demeanor, its approach, its underlying beliefs, that date it in ways that other, similar and roughly contemporary films don't.

I don't agree with you about the picture's ending, or rather, the group's improvised plan to get the money out of town. I didn't find it "idiotic" at all. In fact, I think it was ingenious. There was just that one unforeseen twist that no one saw coming that ruined the scheme. Not too unlike the one stupid goof made by the planner of the heist in The League of Gentlemen.

But for all its downsides, you're right, Ocean's 11 did indeed capture the flavor of America at the very start of the 1960s -- not just in Las Vegas but in the country generally. In that sense it may be technically "dated" too, but not in a bad or interfering way. It's a great film to get a feel for the place and time in which it took place. I did live through that time -- as a little kid, but still enough to remember and appreciate the backgrounds of this film. In some ways some things were better back then. But then, a lot not.

Incidentally, in much the same way I believe The League of Gentlemen also caught much of the flavor of England at the dawn of the 60s.

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The first half seemed to be more about promoting the Rat Pack, nothing more and nothing else.

I agree that Ocean's 11 did have "early sixties" written all over it, but I could say the same thing about quite a few early 1960s comedies. I see nothing wrong with this, as long as the story is good. I watch films from the early sixties because I want to get that early sixties feel. I watch mysteries from the 1930s because I want that old-fashioned feel to my mysteries. I love 1940s film noir for similar reasons. I avoid films from the seventies because...well, let's just say that I'm glad that I'm too young to remember this decade.

Regarding Ocean's 11:

I don't see how those guys could have thought that putting the money in with a dead body would have worked. They wouldn't have had access to that body. The widow did. Did they think that she would have been so willing to just let them snoop around there or something? Badly done on their part. As for The League of Gentlemen, the plan was well thought out, but he goofed on a little thing and that got them all arrested.

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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It just occurred to me that the gang in Ocean's 11 had no choice but to either turn themselves in (and the money), or destroy the money. Once that one crook started to blackmail them, there was no other way out. Sure he wanted 50% of the cut. But what if that money hadn't been burned up? He likely would have upped the price to 75% or something, and later he would have been blackmailing them some more. They made the mistake of pulling the heist when he was in town. They should have covered their tracks a bit better, too, so that he wouldn't have been able to suspect them. I guess those crooks always slip up somewhere.

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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Personally, I'm glad I lived through the 60s, and most of the 50s. The 70s were forgettable but personally okay. There are times I wish I was 30 years older, though in that case I'd probably be dead by now!

As far as Ocean's 11 goes, they had little choice about what to do with the money once Santos (Cesar Romero) found out about their theft. They had to do something to stop him. Of course they were always taking a chance on what Santos would do. But as far as the dead man went I think they assumed the ex-wife would ship it to San Francisco (which she had intended), and they probably figured they could get to the casket and unload the cash before the burial. And realistically, they could probably have managed that. But it's true that wouldn't have solved the Santos issue. But then, trying to double-cross the casino owners by offering Ocean his 50-50 split would have put Santos in a bad legal spot too. Frankly I think the 50-50 deal might have been the 11's wisest course. Santos in his way was trustworthy: he didn't need the money, this was a one-time deal, and there would have been no point in trying to scam more. Besides, with 11 people involved it would be too difficult for him to demand more. From one or two people maybe, but not eleven.

Also, they pulled the job before they knew Santos was in town, so it wasn't a matter of covering their tracks better. But for that accident, they had it made. They had in fact covered their tracks very well.

In that sense, there really is nothing different from The League of Gentlemen. There everything went well but for one oversight. In fact, while the Ocean's 11 plan went awry only because of an accident, Jack Hawkins's plan in TLOG included the factor that led to their capture. He couldn't have known that that kid would be going around writing down license plates, but they shouldn't have used a traceable car in the first place. There was no such screw-up in Danny Ocean's plan.

However, as far as Ocean's 11 goes as a film, we both seem to agree on its pacing and merits. I suppose any further comment on OE should be relegated to its own IMDb board.

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Okay, we can move to the Ocean's 11 board, if you like. I don't have much else to say about the movie, except that it seems to me that the members of the Rat Pack were trying accomplish the same thing with this movie that Elvis and some other singers were trying to accomplish with their beach movies, rock'n roll movies, etc. In the fifties and sixties, quite a few singers promoted their own music by starring in those films, or just showing up briefly to sing a bit. The thing about the members of the Rat Pack is that they were too old to be doing beach movies at that time, so they had to settle for something else.

Aside: someone brought up another early sixties film directed by Basil Dearden. I stopped by that board and I saw that you had started a thread on the board as well. I think that this box set is worth buying. Four films, one which is fantastic and three which are probably excellent.

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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen

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Yes, I saw you posted on the site of Dearden's Victim, so I'm off there shortly.

I have little else to say about Ocean's 11 either, except to say I disagree completely with your hypothesis about the Rat Pack doing this film in the same way other singers made beach movies and the like.

First, the beach movies weren't used to promote someone's songs. They were just silly entertainment. They also came later in the 60s.

Second, Elvis and some other singers, and to a large extent rock 'n' roll movies, were indeed used to promote songs, but quite often -- especially with Elvis -- this promotion was incidental; in fact, as it worked out it was often the song that promoted the film.

But third, this practice has absolutely nothing to do with the Rat Pack or Ocean's 11. There were no songs to speak of in OE, save for Sammy Davis's one-shot "performance" for his fellow sanitation workers (a bit of which was also heard over the soundtrack at the very end). Dean Martin's brief song at the piano in his hotel room hardly counts as it wasn't a song being promoted (neither, for that matter, was Davis's song). So the comparison is thoroughly inapt.

And just as song promotion was not a consideration, similarly OE had nothing to do with the Pack's being "too old to be doing beach movies at that time", therefore having to do "something else." There is no connection here whatever. Not only did they never do such movies or try to, by 1960 most of them were well established actors in serious movie fare, something you would never say of the stars of beach or rock 'n' roll movies. They didn't need to promote themselves, songs or anything else. The film's stars sat at the pinnacle of Hollywood. They just made a heist movie, giving it their own spin. Period. The only appeal the movie sought was the same as that sought by most movies: to adults seeking a couple of hours of entertainment, nothing more. How well they succeeded is a matter of personal reaction, but to somehow even remotely equate Ocean's 11 or the Pack's couple of subsequent movies with the same motivations or intent of beach or rock 'n' roll films is just not a supportable notion.

In that sense also, Ocean's 11 has far more in common with The League of Gentlemen, in both content and intent, than it has with the type of movies you mentioned.

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