The Hi-Jackers *** (1963, Anthony Booth, Jacqueline Ellis, Derek Francis, Patrick Cargill, Glynn Edwards) – Classic Movie Review 12,931

The flavourful 1963 British old-style B-movie crime thriller The Hi-Jackers stars Anthony Booth as a lorry driver out to bust the villains after his own truck is hijacked for its cargo of whisky.

Writer/ director Jim O’Connolly’s flavourful 1963 Butcher’s Film Service British black and white B-movie crime thriller The Hi-Jackers stars Anthony Booth, Jacqueline Ellis, Derek Francis, Patrick Cargill, and Glynn Edwards. It is one of the last of the old-style British B-movies.

A gang of crooks is mounting a series of raids on long-distance lorries, in this short and more than acceptable little British thriller.

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s father-in-law Anthony Booth is an effective star presence as young Terry, a self-employed long-distance lorry driver out to bust the villains with the help of pretty, recently-divorced Shirley (Jacqueline Ellis), after his own truck is hijacked for its obviously valuable cargo of Johnnie Walker Scotch whisky under cover of a fake road accident. Terry is out to bust the gang of villains but Police Inspector Grayson (Patrick Cargill) is on the case.

Terry meets a Shirley at a roadside café and afterwards reluctantly offers her a lift, but then his lorry is hijacked, and they end up first in Grayson’s police station, and then later in Terry’s flat in London. Terry tries to discover how the thieves knew he was going to take the particular quiet side road where he was hijacked, while Shirley does her own investigating, using her jailed ex-husband as a way to try to track down Jack Carter (Derek Francis), the smooth boss of the hijackers.

Plenty of hints of intelligence in Jim O’Connolly’s characterful screenplay, with decent dialogue, some good performances (especially from Derek Francis as the calm and calculating mastermind, Patrick Cargill as the acidic, supercilious inspector and Glynn Edwards as tough-minded gang henchman Bluey), the atmospheric black and white cinematography by Walter J Harvey, and a tasty flavour of the time help out a slightly limping plotline. It’s a big help that the film gets us out and about, and it doesn’t feel at all studio bound. Anthony Booth and Jacqueline Ellis share enough appealing screen chemistry to keep the film likeable.

Quirky cute blonde Jacqueline Ellis, the only female in the entire cast, makes quite a strong impression as an adventurous but vulnerable woman with a hard outside and a soft centre. The story has hints of the classic The League of Gentlemen (1960), with its rehearsal for the crime followed by the heist itself, though of course the film isn’t in the same league.

Release date: December 1963.

The cast are Anthony Booth as Terry McKinley, Jacqueline Ellis as Shirley, Derek Francis as Jack Carter, Patrick Cargill as Inspector Grayson, Glynn Edwards as Bluey, David Gregory as Pete, Harold Goodwin as Scouse, Tony Wager [Anthony Wager] as Smithy, Arthur English as Bert, Michael Beint as Forbes, Tommy Eytle as Sam Reynolds, Romo Gorrara as Joe, Ronald Hines as Jim Brady, Douglas Livingstone as Tim, Marianne Stone as Lil, and George Waring.

The Hi-Jackers [The Hijackers] is directed by Jim O’Connolly, runs 70 minutes, is made by Butcher’s Film Service, is released by Butcher’s Film Productions, is written by Jim O’Connolly, is shot in black and white by Walter J Harvey, is produced by John I Phillips and Ronald Liles, is scored by Johnny Douglas, and is designed by Duncan Sutherland.

Jim O’Connolly went on to direct the trash classics Berserk (1967) and The Valley of Gwangi 1969). He is best known as the associate producer of Edgar Wallace Mysteries B-films made at Merton Park Studios in the early 1960s, though he also directed Crooks and Coronets (1969) and Tower of Evil (1972), and several episodes of TV’s The Saint, including Vendetta for the Saint (1969), a two-part episode later released as a theatrical film.

It is on a double bill DVD with Jim O’Connolly’s attractive 1964 Butcher’s Film Service British black and white B-movie Smokescreen, which also features both Derek Francis and Glynn Edwards in very different roles.

There is also a colorized version of The Hi-Jackers. It’s not actually authentic, exactly, though it does look quite cute and convincing, but then the atmospheric black and white cinematography is one of the main appeals of the original.

Jacqueline Ellis was born on June 21, 1934 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. She appeared as both good girls and bad girls in many British crime B-movies and TV shows in England. They include The Traitors and The Sinister Man (both with Patrick Allen); The Hi-Jackers with Anthony Booth; Accidental Death with John Carson and on TV in The Saint with Roger Moore. She had a busy two-decade career form 1955 to 1974.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 12,931

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