A Prize of Arms (1962)

recommended

Boring, long, and too preachy.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

An exciting, suspenseful, ingenious thriller, this one makes very inventive use of the author's obviously first-hand knowledge of military red tape. The direction has pace and flair and actual locations are very effectively employed. The film has obviously been produced on an an unusually lavish budget, including an enormous cast. All roles from the largest to the smallest are superlatively played in a solidly realistic manner. The movie also excels with a great number of extras, including loads of location filming and even a sequence in which a whole army building is spectacularly burnt to the ground. As usual in this type of film, our sympathies are directed firmly to the robbers and we feel with them as they collectively and individually make one hairsbreadth escape after another, The screenplay is superbly constructed to extract the utmost suspense and tension and while it seems to be light on characterization, the personable playing by Baker, Bell and others makes up for this deficiency. The Greek unities are observed and fortunately there is no romantic interest whatever to dissipate the film's grip and tension. True, the climax is a bit extravagant and clichéd, but this is the one sour note in an otherwise excellent thriller.

This a forgotten gem. The term "heist movie" should have been created for pictures like this one. A little known director hitting all the right notes, a great screenplay and a great cast (Stanley Baker is a favorite of mine). The movie is the heist, no prologue required; the characters are defined by the action (just brief dialogue to tell us something about the past of Stanley Baker and Helmut Schmid). The film grabs the viewer from the first scene, and never lets go. A nail bitter all the way. The ending is a Knock out; this one really ends with a bang. Today action directors should watch this movie. Maybe they would learn something.

A PRIZE OF ARMS is quite similar stylistically to Stanley Baker's HELL DRIVERS, although not quite as good as that movie. It's an engaging little piece that tells of a trio of crooks who set an elaborate plan into action to rob an army payroll. The plan involves them infiltrating an army camp and posing as soldiers before they truly set the wheels in motion.This makes for tight, focused story-telling throughout, with no time for the usual romantic sub-plots and the like to pad out the storyline. In fact, there are no actresses in the film whatsoever. The use of a flamethrower in some crucial scenes also makes for novelty value and this feels way ahead of its time in that respect.Baker gives a dependable turn as the antihero lead and the supporting cast has also been well chosen. What's particularly interesting is the sheer quantity of future famous faces lining up to play the soldiers: Rodney Bewes, Patrick Magee, Stephen Lewis, Geoffrey Palmer, Fulton Mackay, and Michael Ripper are all present here and certainly add to the experience for British cinema fans.

I was surprised that this film has not yet been reviewed here since it stars a major British talent, the late Sir Stanley Baker.The film is set against a background of a Suez type military action. The main protagonists including Tom Bell of later Prime Suspect fame, decide this would be a perfect time to rob an army camp where there is lots of cash for the deployment and an overall atmosphere of confusion.The plan is well thought out and feasible but, inevitably small things start to go wrong. The film is quite gripping and the whole business is resolved in a more than competent fashion.The screenplay of the movie was co-written by Nicholas Roeg. The version I watched, a PAL disc viewed NTSC ran 102 minutes.