The Good Die Young

A film set in London. Four men are sitting in a car. They have guns and a robbery is coming. The narrative goes back from there. How each of the four arrived at that car is told in turn. The first is Joe. An American; he wants to go home with his English wife and her mother will not allow it. She will not let her daughter go and produces a new excuse every time. The second is Mike. A boxer; his hand is damaged and he will not fight again. His brother got into trouble and the debt has to be paid. The third is Eddie. An airman; his wife is a film actress and she is unfaithful. He leaves his unit without permission and becomes a deserter. The fourth is Rave. The son of a rich family; his father has cut off the money and he is in debt. He is the one with the plan. From there the film comes back to the robbery. A mail van, a street, a few minutes. What the narrative is interested in is not crime but a vice: its idea is that three of the men are not criminals and that each has been caught in a separate trap; the fourth knows it and uses it. Rave is not drawn as likeable but is not plainly evil either. He simply thinks about himself. The structure is like an anthology. Three stories are told separately and join at the end. The robbery is short and goes wrong from beginning to end. The images are in the noir tradition. Night, wet streets, hard shadow. Laurence Harvey, Richard Basehart, Stanley Baker, Gloria Grahame, Joan Collins and John Ireland are in the cast. Lewis Gilbert directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes British noir and multi-strand structures. Who it is not for: anyone looking for pace; the first two thirds are entirely setup and the robbery comes very late.