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Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786302969825
Format: Black & White, NTSC
ISBN: 6302969824
Label: Homevision
Manufacturer: Homevision
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Homevision
Release Date: June 13, 2000
Running Time: 116 minutes
Sales Rank: 25393
Studio: Homevision
Theatrical Release Date: 1960
Editorial Review:
Description:
Imagine a group of eight slightly shady, definitely desperate ex-army officers getting together--not for old times' sake, but to use their collective military talents to capture a bank! Jack Hawkins is superb as the mastermind behind 'Operation Golden Fleece,' flanked by Nigel Patrick as the capable transport officer and Richard Atteborough as the sleazy radio operator. The League of Gentlemen is a uniquely British thriller loaded with comedy, suspense, and a fiendishly clever bank robbery.
Amazon.com:
The League of Gentlemen is a sardonic crime drama in which Jack Hawkins plays an embittered retired army officer who recruits seven fellow ex-soldiers to carry out a bank raid with military precision. The film presents an England between post-war austerity and the more liberated 1960s where traditional moral certainties were rapidly being discarded; a London where ex-officers left on the scrapheap at war's end could justify turning their military experience to armed robbery. Unfortunately the tale is neither particularly amusing or thrilling, with an overlong central detour via an army camp prefacing the exciting heist and a largely anti-climactic ending. Nevertheless Hawkins effectively subverts his heroic officer type from The Cruel Sea (1953) and The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), and there’s excellent support from a great cast including Nigel Patrick, Richard Attenborough and Roger Livesey.
Bryan Forbes not only wrote the cynical screenplay but co-starred with wife Nanette Newman in her first significant screen role. More influential than truly classic, The League of Gentlemen has lent its name to a modern BBC comedy and an 'Extraordinary' comic strip-turned-movie, and proved the template for heist films ever since, including both versions of The Italian Job (1969 and 2003). --Gary S. Dalkin
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Template For Just About All Caper Films To Follow
Basil Dearden's seldom seen 1960 heist film The League of Gentlemen has provided the template for almost every significant heist film which has followed it from Oceans 11 to the Italian Job and others.
The film follows the exploits of Hyde (Jack Hawkins) an ex British military officer who has been forced into mandatory retirement as he plans and executes a major British bank robbery. Gathering around him a group of exmilitary experts he puts together a methodical robbery plan that he ... Read More
Rating: - A first-rate movie, witty and cynical, about a disgruntled, forcibly retired Army colonel and what he does about it.
"Think of it as a full-scale military operation," says involuntarily retired Colonel Hyde (Jack Hawkins) to cashiered ex-major Race (Nigel Patrick). "What chance has a bunch of ordinary civilians have against a trained, armed and disciplined military group?" Hyde did not for one moment like being forced into retirement after 25 years in the British army. He spent the last few days of active duty doing some research among personnel files. Now, Hyde plans to get a bit of his own back...and Race, along ... Read More
Rating:  - VHS and NOVEL
This picture is based on the 1958 novel by John Boland (worth reading, but with a different ending than the movie - darker). Of course this is
the progenitor of Ocean's Eleven - cashiered soldiers robbing a bank or casino as a military operation - but as British as Ocean's Eleven was
Sixties America. Mr. Hawkins' (the leader's) comment to his lieutenant about the matronly woman portrayed on the staircase of his old gloomy house is a memorable example of understated humor - you'll see.
Rating: - The thinking person's 'Ocean's Eleven'
An underappreciated British classic full of wit and irony. A cadre of ex-servicemen seek to escape their dreary, pinched lives in postwar Britain by reuniting for one last 'mission'.
Rating: - A classic!
Funny, sharp witted, well-made. A clear influence on THE DIRTY DOZEN. Nigel Patrick is a stand-out. Roger Livesy steals the film with his imitation of a General. British life is well-observed; "Bunny" is a high-light. Don't miss this!
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