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Reviews
Robbery (1967)
A great British 1960s gangster film
A very well made near-reconstruction of the Great Train Robbery, taut, brilliantly directed and acted, with excellent casting.
Stanley Baker was on top form for this film-such a tragedy that he died so young-and so are the rest of the cast, which includes many 1960s British film stalwarts, such as Glynn Edwards and Barry Foster.
It should be remembered that many of the details of the preparations by the "firms" who carried out the real GTR, only came out in later books, so the very realistic pre-the big robbery story lines in this film were, it turned out, not surprisingly, very accurate: the robbery to finance the big job, the pulling together of a team of top criminals etc.
In all not one to be missed, whenever it is shown on TV.
Lacombe Lucien (1974)
A powerful film about a grim historical period.
I think this film was the one that really opened my eyes as to just how horrible life was in France under the German occupation and led to my great interest in almost any film depicting the era, or even better, newsreels.
A young man develops the power of life or death over others by "accidentally" joining the Gestapo-even the French police are forced to defer to him. We see the casual brutality of the French Gestapo, the tell-tale denunciation letters, the deportation of Jews.
An excellent portrait of how unpleasant everyday life could be under the occupation-a fascinatingly horrible historical period.