Crooks In Cloisters [DVD] [1964]

Product Information

Such left-field casting suggested a side of Cribbins that was never fully exploited, and the same goes for his thuggish treachery as a lecherous publican in Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy (1972) and his hangdog cynicism in the teleplay Dangerous Davies: The Last Detective (1981). Despite my huge and rather shameful crush on that sexy little chipmunk, Babs Windsor, I just couldn't get into this subpar imitation of The Lavender Hill Mob featuring small-time crooks on the lam who hide-out in a monastery. Cribbins and Jeffries hooked up again on another children’s classic, The Water Babies (1978), but the same year was to be found playing Gertrude Stein in the surreal Swedish comedy The Adventures of Picasso. Please consider upgrading to a Pro account—for less than a couple bucks a month, you’ll get cool additional features like all-time and annual stats pages ( example), the ability to select (and filter by) your favorite streaming services, and no ads! All the time while they are on the island they are in hiding from the police who are trying to catch the last big criminal gang.

Very much of it's time, this comedy features plenty of famous faces from British comedy and a style of humour that is based more on attitude than fantastic jokes. There is certainly nothing remarkable about this comedy except that it was to star Peter Sellers but he was still making ‘A Shot in the Dark’. Ashridge House, Ashridge near Berkhamstead in Hertfordshire which is also seen in 'Dracula: Prince of Darkness'. I won't be spoiling anything to say that our gangsters soon fall into the monk's life with a certain affection.The six of them set up business in a disused monastery off the Cornish coast, despite the fact that none of them really qualifies as a monk - least of all Walter's moll Bikini. From her bit part debut in The Belles of St Trinian’s (1954), Windsor’s bubbly blonde persona had made her a ready fit for screen comedy. The Intern (2015) Seventy-year-old widower Ben Whittaker, a retired executive from DEX One, applies to a senior citizen intern program, after retirement has become too boring for him.

Also around are Wilfred Brambell as a boat captain and - in his first movie role - the recently deceased Corin Redgrave, in the role of 'Brother Lucius'. Windsor did more television than cinema, notably taking 2 different characters in The Rag Trade (1961-63) and playing key roles in the various small-screen Carry On spin-offs. As was the case with so many of these British comedies, the crooks are such nice folk you almost want them to get away scot free. Barbara Windsor, as the token female member of the crew, is as grating as ever, while Bernard Cribbins spends almost his entire running time getting to grips with a pesky goat. He appeared in a record 112 editions of Jackanory (1966 to 1995), as well as narrating and providing all the character voices for 60 episodes of The Wombles (1973 to 1975).

Brother Willy (Melvyn Hayes) becomes a pig farmer whilst Brother Squirts (Bernard Cribbins) gets himself a pet goat and collects apples from the orchard. After a slick credits sequence parodying the Great Train Robbery (with Barbara Windsor taking over as driver! The criminals doing a runner to the remote monastery are the honestly dishonest, ‘Daddy was a bank robber’, salt-of-the-earth, wouldn’t harm a fly - unless they had to types. Yet, Cribbins will be most fondly remembered for his BAFTA-nominated performance as the station porter in Lionel Jeffries’ impeccable adaptation of The Railway Children (1970).