The Criminal

Johnny Bannion is just out of prison. The time he has outside is enough to plan a robbery at a racetrack. The robbery happens, it goes wrong, and Bannion goes back inside. He will not tell anyone where he hid the money. From that point on, both the prison and the world outside are looking at one question: where is it. In the wing the warders, the inmates and his partners on the outside come at him all at once. The order inside turns out to be no different from the order outside. Joseph Losey directs the British film; ninety-seven minutes, with Stanley Baker as Bannion and a score by John Dankworth. Losey was American; blacklisted, he settled in Britain and made this there. The prison scenes are considerably harder than what British crime films of the period were doing.