Crooks in Cloisters *** (1963, Ronald Fraser, Barbara Windsor, Bernard Cribbins) – Classic Movie Review 5386

The endearingly daft 1963 film Crooks in Cloisters is a happy reminder of the pleasantly simpler days of British comedy when characters were called Bikini (Barbara Windsor of course), Squirts (Bernard Cribbins) and Specs (Davy Kaye).

Director Jeremy Summers’s endearingly daft 1963 offering Crooks in Cloisters is a happy reminder of the pleasantly simpler days of British comedy when characters were called Bikini (Barbara Windsor of course), Squirts (Bernard Cribbins), Willy (Melvyn Hayes) and Specs (Davy Kaye). Ronald Fraser stars as Little Walter, the leader of a gang of forgers.

Ronald Fraser, Barbara Windsor, Bernard Cribbins, Melvyn Hayes, Grégoire Aslan, Davy Kaye and company play the crooks who flee from London after pulling off a train robbery, and hide out in a disused monastery in Cornwall. Soon they are reformed from a life of bank note forgery by the fresh air off the Cornish coast.

Of course it is really just Carry On Up the Cloisters, with lots of friendly faces and a busy, cheerful script by Mike Watts and T J Morrison, based on Watts’s story. Joseph O’Connor (as Father Septimus) and Corin Redgrave (as Brother Lucius) are other welcome faces among the inmates. Francesca Annis plays June, Phineas (Wilfrid Brambell)’s granddaughter, whom Willy (Hayes) has fallen for. The film is full of welcome faces.

Also in the vintage British-based cast are Grégoire Aslan, Wilfrid Brambell, Melvyn Hayes, Francesca Annis, Patricia Laffan, Alister Williamson as Superintendent Mungo, Norman Chappell, Russell Waters and Arnold Ridley.

It was made by Associated British Picture Corporation and released by Warner-Pathé Distributors on 11 August 1964.

It runs 98 minutes.

Grégoire Aslan was born on 28 March 1908 in Constantinople, Ottoman Empire, as Krikor Aslanian and died on 8 January 1982, aged 73.

Crooks in Cloisters was filmed at the Associated British Picture Studios, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, and on location at St Mawes in Cornwall. The harbour at the end of the film is Portloe. The exterior monastery sequences were filmed around Ashridge House in Ashridge near Berkhamstead, Hertfordshire. The opening train robbery sequence involves British Rail class 4 diesel locomotive D140.

The cast are Ronald Fraser as Little Walter (Walt), Barbara Windsor as Bikini, Grégoire Aslan as Lorenzo, Bernard Cribbins as Squirts, Davy Kaye as Specs, Wilfrid Brambell as Phineas, Melvyn Hayes as Willy, Joseph O’Conor as Father Septimus, Corin Redgrave as Brother Lucius, Francesca Annis as June, Norman Chappell as Benson, Arnold Ridley as Newsagent, Patricia Laffan as Lady Florence, Alister Williamson as Superintendent Mungo, Russell Waters as Ship’s Chandler, Howard Douglas as Publican, and Max Bacon as Bookmaker.

Melvyn Hayes (né Hyams; born 11 January 1935).

Francesca Annis (born 14 May 1945).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5386

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