Rent A Prize of Arms (1962)
3.3 of 5 from 61 ratings
1h 41min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- A gang of criminals acquire an old army truck and try to pass themselves off as military policemen. Their plan is to steal a £250, 000 payroll intended for soldiers in the Middle East. Turpin (Stanley Baker) recruits Fenner (Tom Bell) and Swavek (Helmut Schmid) to make up a crack assault team. The three criminals plan their daring robbery with meticulous precision and timing and as dawn breaks, they head into the army camp for their date with destiny. Ad the duty guard raises the barrier Turpin knows there can be no turning back. His desperate gamble for riches will now be played out to its shattering climax...
- Actors:
- Stanley Baker, Helmut Schmid, Tom Bell, John Phillips, Patrick Magee, John Westbrook, Kenneth Mackintosh, Jack May, Frank Gatliff, Michael Ripper, Rio Fanning, John Rees, Tom Adams, Anthony Bate, Rodney Bewes
- Directors:
- Cliff Owen
- Producers:
- George Maynard
- Writers:
- Nicolas Roeg, Kevin Kavanagh, Paul Ryder, Roger Marshall
- Studio:
- Odeon
- Genres:
- Action & Adventure, Classics, Drama, Thrillers
- Collections:
- Getting to Know..., Heist Movies: A 20-Year Stretch, Roeg and Bertolucci: Remembering the Masters, A Brief History of Film...
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Reviews (2) of A Prize of Arms
Slow Down a Bit Stanley - A Prize of Arms review by Cato
This is a good early 60's film about three criminal types who want to rob the army of a great deal of money by pretending to be soldiers. The leader is Stanley Baker, who plays the guy who's made all the plans for the break in, but I don't think I've ever heard an actor who's spoken his lines so quickly, so much so that you're not quite sure what he's on about until the action begins in earnest. However, it's a good story but you know it'll all end in tears. This is a stiff upper lip British film after all.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Heist film. - A Prize of Arms review by Steve
Tough, low budget heist drama which upends the moral code of fifties British WWII films and anticipates the anti-establishment values of the sixties counterculture. Two disaffected combat veterans team up with a Polish explosives expert to raid an army safe stocked up with cash to pay for an operation overseas. Something like Suez.
The trio break into barracks while the soldiers are leaving. As former grunts themselves, they know how to salute, but they are the foreign body which jams normal army machinery. No one stops them, but they keep breaching regulations. Stanley Baker is the leader with the sort of improvisational daring which would be invaluable in wartime.
He and Tom Bell are fuelled with the resentment that leads them to take on the system, but also makes it difficult to co-operate with each other. The two leads are excellent. German actor Helmut Schmid has less to do as the safe-breaker. It'd be interesting to know whether the makers considered him as a former Nazi soldier, but maybe that would be too subversive...
This is a really thoughtful, brooding crime story, which is given a touch of class by Baker's star quality. Three years earlier, The League of Gentlemen touched on similar themes, but this is a much angrier film. When Baker walks through the army camp burning it down with his flame thrower, it's not just a dramatic visual image, it's also a metaphor. Welcome to the sixties.
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