A cheapo crime thriller from the prolific Butcher's Film Service. These films were a dime a dozen in the early '60s and THE GENTLE TRAP has a poor title and a plot that could be interchangeable with at least a dozen others. The film has an arresting opening in which a couple of thieves are betrayed by a rival gang but soon descends into tedium with a long-winded, who-can-you-trust style storyline.One of the few good things this has going for it is a very short running time. It clocks in at just 59 minutes in length but you feel every minute of it. Some of the supporting do quite well in their clichéd roles, like the alluring femme fatale and the tough criminal bosses, but even so this is cheap stuff indeed and of interest only to fans of the era.British director Charles Saunders churned out B-movie after B-movie for a period of some twenty years between the early 1940s and early 1960s. He made the occasional nudie film (NUDIST PARADISE) and horror flick (WOMAN EATER) but for the most part delivered second-rate thrillers like this and DANGER BY MY SIDE. I don't know much about leading man Spencer Teakle except he also appeared in COVER GIRL KILLER and FIRST MAN INTO SPACE and had a great name to boot.

A London locksmith called Johnny Ryan (Spencer Teakle) pulls off his once in a lifetime job, a raid on a jewelery store, in which the heist is £60,000 worth of uncut diamonds that he intends to use to fund a new life with his girlfriend, a nightclub singer called Sylvia (Dawn Brooks). However, Sylvia has betrayed him to her boss, Ricky Barnes (Martin Benson), a Soho gangster, whose thugs set up on Johnny and his elderly accomplice, Sam (Arthur Hewlett), after they have done the job. Johnny is beaten up but Sam is run over by the gang's car and later dies from his injuries. But Barnes' thugs make off with the case containing Johnny's safe-breaking gear thinking that it contains the loot but in actual fact, Johnny had stuffed it into his coat pocket. Johnny is now in a situation of grave peril as not only is he wanted by the police for Sam's murder but also by the gang seeking to get their hands on the diamonds. Johnny finds help from two sisters, Jean (Dorinda Stevens), who runs a clip joint and her sister Mary (Felicity Young). Mary is hard and deceitful and joins forces with Barnes to recover the diamonds in the hope of getting a share herself. Meanwhile, Jean is kind hearted and gentle and hatches a plan to help Johnny escape since she is falling in love with him. She smuggles him into the back of a removal van, which her Uncle (John Dunbar) is taking back to his country farm. However, Barnes and the gang are following in pursuit...Another routine crime drama from quota-quickie specialists, Butcher's Film Distributors. Most of the reviews I have read for this film are largely scathing i.e. 'threadbare', 'shoddy' and worse still: 'everybody concerned hashes it up'. I would not go as far as that since although it is pretty run-of-the-mill stuff with little to distinguish it from countless other second features; there are some decent performances here notably from Dorinda Stevens and Felicity Young who work well together as the sisters who are two completely different personalities so the contrast is excellent. On the negative side, suspense is killed off right from the word go since as one would expect from a Butcher's b-pic, the plot development is predictable and if you have seen one you have pretty much seen them all as they always have the obligatory happy ending rather than a dramatic one. Don't expect any surprises here. The screenwriter's credit reads; Screenplay by Brock Williams, additional material by Alan Osborne, from a story by Guido Coen. For such a routine assignment did it really warrant three writers? Director Charles Saunders, a former editor who spent most of his directorial career making pot boilers such as this, carries the proceedings along at a snappy pace and the atmospheric b/w cinematography is by Ken Hodges.All in all, The Gentle Trap has little to set it apart from the countless number of British b-pics of that time but thanks to a few good performances, competent direction and some smart camera work, it can be enjoyed as a pleasant reminder of an era of British filmmaking that has long since been forgotten.

Night scene: A car is parked outside a shop, possibly a launderette, and two men appear to be stealing it - the car, that is. Hard to tell really. The doors are unlocked and they manage to get the car started in seconds. Maybe the owner had left the keys in the ignition? Anyway, they're off! And so are we - off round 1950s night-London in the company of Butcher's Film Distributors. After the credits, and some cheesy "News Huddlines" type music, our two heroes park up down a derelict backstreet under an ill illuminated street-lamp. Soon Johnny (Spencer Teacle) has his ear pressed rosy against a jeweller's safe. If the car was easy to get into, the shop is even easier – no locks back in dem black and white days, you see. And listening to Johnny's elderly accomplice, Sam, (future TV veteran Arthur Hewlett) you'd think that cracking a safe was a cakewalk too. "Get a move on, Johnny!" he shouts, with no small irritation – as if Johnny was fannying around with a tin opener and a can of Heinz. "Why don't you have a go if it's so simple, granddad", he doesn't reply – although he'd be perfectly entitled too. It's maybe not a good idea to keep a jackpot of diamonds (£60,000 worth) in an old safe. Things go wrong however when Sam is knocked down and killed, while making good his escape, by a rival gang, who work for someone called Ricky Barnes (Martin Benson). Before the cops can nick him (yes, they're there too) Johnny get on his toes with the loot and, despite his accomplice having been killed, appears strangely triumphant when he returns home to the girlfriend. Still, that smirk will soon be wiped off his face (or perhaps not). Sylvia, the girlfriend (Dawn Brooks, in her only screen appearance!) has bolted. Cut to Sylvia as a singing chanteuse in one of those second feature nightspots where cigarette girls wonder between tables populated by Rotary club type couples. The witch! She's only gone and sold out Johnny to sleazy crime boss Ricky Barnes. "It takes a man to handle the big stuff" apparently.Finding himself on the trot from both Ricky's mob and the cops, Johnny winds up at a clip joint called The Night Owl, run by Mary (Dorinda Stevens, who had appeared in the previous year's far more lively "The Shakedown".). She offers Johnny a bed for the night (her own), on which he promptly collapses. An open invitation for Mary to riffle through his pockets no doubt, in which she finds the gems. Naughty Mary!Butchers Film Distributors, who produced their first film way back in 1917, are remembered today, if at all, for precisely this kind of fair - second features from the turn of the 1950s. Back in the good old days of 3 channel Britain, they were regularly broadcast on TV as afternoon matinées. Nowadays, they occasionally pop up to entertain insomniacs in the small hours, presumably when there's nothing else to show. As far as Butchers goes, the classic era of their second features (if that isn't an oxymoron) was probably inaugurated with "Assignment Redhead" in 1956 and concluded, a whopping 17 films later, with "The Sicilians" in 1964. Those familiar with Butchers output will know what to expect here with "The Gentle Trap". It's a thriller, albeit a curiously inert one entirely lacking in thrills, featuring, in no particular order: double-crossing thieves – and dames! – a seedy, possibly foreign, crime boss who runs a nightclub - a wronged man (who isn't particularly wronged, when you think about it) and a bit of equally implausible love interest between wronged man Johnnie and Mary's wet behind the ears sister Jean (Felicity Young.) Starring Spencer Teacle, whose only other lead roll was a year earlier in "Cover Girl Killer", also, strangely enough, or not, alongside Young (who here plays the only decent character in the film, i.e. one who isn't either a crook or a double crosser.) Unfortunately, most of the acting in "The Gentle Trap" is as inert as the action. Spencer Teacle isn't really up to it as tough guy Johnny, and can never quite wipe the smirk off his face. The original scenario for this film was provided by Guido Coen. Eight years later Coen came up with some far more risqué fare in "Baby Love", before undertaking production duties in the inevitable 1970s sex comedy genre, e.g. "Sex Games of the Very Rich". All quite cynical when you consider the abiding theme of the film, that of trying to find a nice girl "who's never missed the last train home."

Are we sure that Ed Wood somehow didn't directed this? The movie's style and storytelling is just as bad as in an Ed Wood movie sadly.The movie was released in 1960 but I've seen movies that were made 30 years earlier that style had a better and more professional looking visual style. Sadly London, in this movie ain't got such an atmosphere as for instance New York or Chicago do in movies from the same genre. This is really one of those movies that makes you wonder; why did I even watched this in the first place? It's a pointless movie with a pointless literal and figural, black and white story. The acting is bad and the fights are over the top and hilarious to watch for the wrong reason.It's hard to say anything about this movie. It's short and the story is way too weak to say any thing thought-full about.Really not worth your time.3/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/