SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

GrimPrecise I'll tell you why so serious

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Janis One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

jamesraeburn2003 A gang of criminals, Turpin (Stanley Baker), Fenner (Tom Bell) and Swavek (Helmut Schmid) plot to steal an army payroll worth £250,000 meant for soldiers serving in the Middle East. To this end they plan to impersonate soldiers and infiltrate an army camp using an old military vehicle. When the big day comes, they know that whatever happens there can be no turning back. Either they will pull it off and enjoy a life of vast wealth or it could go disastrously wrong and they will spend the rest of their lives in prison or worse. But what will fate decide for them?A criminally underappreciated film, which received positive reviews from the critics at the time but failed to make much of an impact at the box office. Seen today it emerges as a pacy, exciting and very suspenseful heist thriller. The tension starts off very moderately; but it gradually builds up causing us to grip the arms of our seats tighter and tighter as a series of events occur that threaten to compromise the success of the gang's raid. For instance, having managed to convince everybody at the army base that they are regular soldiers, they find themselves being ordered into the medical centre to have inoculations since the officers there are being sent to serve their country abroad. There is also a really funny scene in which Tom Bell's Fenner gets purloined by Patrick Magee's RSM Hicks to a dirty job of cleaning pots and pans. Here, he falls foul of a supervising sergeant who takes pleasure in browbeating officers who are below his rank and Fenner retaliates by upsetting the table holding the pans he is cleaning and shouting a rude insult. This too threatens the success of the gang's plans because Fenner has drawn attention to himself since orders are given to find him so he can face disciplinary action. The tension finally reaches fever pitch as they finally succeed in raiding the chief cashier's office; creating a diversionary fire, blowing the safe open and carrying the loot out on a stretcher holding a wounded officer right under the noses of the camp's high command amid all the commotion. But, as they plan to slip out of the base in their military vehicle by sabotaging a breakdown truck and joining a departing convoy of arms, the military top brass begin to sort of see through all the ruses the gang has laid to make it appear an outside job. But they haven't, as yet, quite fitted all the pieces of the puzzle together to prove it for sure. Have Turpin and his mates pulled off the crime of the century, or will they be proven to have been too clever for their own good?Cleverly directed by Cliff Owen, a film maker whose talents never really got the recognition they deserved. Here he displays a proficiency for the thriller genre (check out his debut feature, the crime 'B' -pic Offbeat) keeping the action moving at a cracking pace and artfully constructing mounting tension that culminates in a skilfully staged and fiery climax that will leave you stunned. Stanley Baker, Tom Bell and Helmut Schmid all deserve glowing reviews as the crooks attempting to pull off the final and biggest job of their lives while lots of unexpected people crop up in the supporting cast; including Michael Robbins, Rodney Bewes and Fulton McKay. Oh, and I think I spotted Geoffrey Palmer is in there somewhere too.Happily A Prize Of Arms is now readily available on DVD for a new generation of fans to enjoy - it is something that all fans of good thrillers and of British cinema cannot afford to miss.

writers_reign Okay, it's a rainy Thursday in Scunthorpe; your tele's on the blink, the chipshop's closed and all the badminton courts at the Leisure Centre are booked solid. The local flea-pit is playing this piece of cheese and at least it'll get you out of the rain. That's about the best you can say for it; someone connected with Film Production has seen a real heist movie - Jacques Becker's Touchez-pas au grisbi, perhaps, or Jules Dassin's Riffifi - and thinks they're easy to do. Wrong. It's like the dozens of Am-Dram outfits all over the country who think Hay Fever is a walk in the park. So, this bright spark wrote the word 'gritty' on a blackboard, signed up a team of second-rate talent and waited for the money to roll in. He's probably still waiting.

Leofwine_draca 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.

Theo Robertson Turin a former officer in the British Army who was dismissed from the outfit sixteen years earlier decides to take his revenge on the military by planning and carrying out a payroll robbery at his former barracks British films from this period tended to lag behind their American counterparts on many levels and a common criticism was that "British cinema was radio with pictures" . It's interesting this film was released a couple of years before ZULU which even today is probably the epitome of what can be termed British Hollywood and that several cast members , Baker ,Magee and Edwards featured in both films , but in its own way A PRIZE OF ARMS is low key but an involving heist thrillerNow heist thrillers are rather formulaic and often rely on double cross and triple cross . Not so here where the characters are stealing money for themselves and are therefore reliant on themselves . Made in the early 1960s when National Service had just ended in Britain it's set in a time when people had an ambiguous mindset towards the military . You can see both viewpoints from this film . Pilfering was a common occurrence in a conscript army and the trio of thieves seen here are just taking things one step further , but at the same time the military isn't shown as stupid or inept either . Perhaps most tellingly there's little violence used and the heist is carried out via very careful planning just like you'd get in the military and just like in conflict the careful plans go out of the window as the first boot lands on hostile territory . This is what makes A PRIZE OF ARMS a memorable heist thriller - it's well written with several points where you gasp "How are they going to get out of this one ? " and when a film makes you worry that a bunch of spivs might get caught red handed this must be viewed as a success