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.

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.

The long awaited DVD release cover gives equal billing to Rodney Bewes and Fulton McKay. Why? Bewes only has one line and I cannot recall Fulton McKay at all. Surely Patrick Magee should have taken a billing slot? Apart from that I consider this film to be on a par with the likes of Hell Drivers, Hell is a City, Villain and Robbery - all finely cast gritty crime dramas of that era. The tight direction, army camp locations, vehicles used and military discipline & bull all add to the reality. The film is gripping throughout and keeps you in suspense. Although Stanley Baker and Tom Bell are again typecast as villains, it would be difficult think of other actors who could have carried this off, except say for Michael Craig. Well recommended.

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.