Piccadilly Third Stop (1960)
Not every furniture range has star billing in a film, so hats off to the British company G Plan which is prominently featured in the opening credits of Wolf Rilla’s 1960 film Piccadilly Third Stop. The company began producing the particular style of modern furniture for which it is renowned in the 1950s, and the range continues to be sought after for its distinctive design, characterised as being stylish, innovative and adventurous.
It’s probably fair to say that the film doesn’t exhibit such qualities, but it’s a decent movie, interesting and engaging in its depiction of the shady way of life of a section of London society, which consists of unpleasant characters scraping a criminal living with the threat of violence ever present.
Diamond geezers
The tone is set in the opening scenes, which depict a Mayfair wedding reception full of the smartly-dressed upper class with braying voices well represented. No one sees the deftly executed manoeuvre when our ‘hero’ Dominic Colpoys-Owen (Terence Morgan) palms a diamond ring from the wedding present display and passes it to his mate Toddy (Charles Kay) to get it out of the building, leaving him free to chat up a girl who is to lead Dominic and his henchmen to a major heist.
The girl is Fina (Yoko Tani) from the Spice Islands, daughter of an ambassador with whom she lives in their Knightsbridge mansion. While Dominic works on gaining her trust and her virginity, we meet other players in this sordid scenario.
Joe Preedy (John Crawford) is an American chancer up to his eyes in debt, accrued to meet the demands of his wife Christine (Mai Zetterling). He tries to make money through smuggling stolen watches and through gambling – oh dear.
The casino scenes are as painful to watch as are his office interviews with the boss Edward (Dennis Price) whose suave manner intensifies his ruthlessness with debtors. And he’s backed up by heavy guy Albert (Doug Robinson) who combines affability and menace.
As we move towards the formation of the master plan there are many opportunities to enjoy a shudder at the sexual politics of yesteryear. Fina, with her appearance and her accent, is an obvious target, and it’s almost a relief when Dominic refers to his Oriental cherry blossom. That’s not as bad though as the heartless way he sets about seducing Fina.
His campaign gains impetus when she unwittingly comments on how difficult it was to help her father count the bank notes secured in the safe. Oh, how many? A hundred thousand! Poor Fina. It’s one of those moments when you want to shout at the screen ‘Don’t go down the abandoned mine!’ ‘Don’t meet the blackmailer in the car park!’
Lure of the cash
Dominic gets her on board with a scheme to steal the money by promising to use the cash to set the two of them up in a life free from parental constraints and cultural expectations. Hopelessly in love with him, Fina holds out for a short while. When he reminds her that she said she’d do anything for him, she replies she wouldn’t do that, but this Meatloaf foreshadowing doesn’t last more than a nanosecond, it seems.
But Dominic, of course, hasn’t the slightest intention of creating a life with Fina. He has another string to his bow, who else but Preedy’s wife Christine. Venal and mercenary, unable or unwilling to hide her contempt for her admittedly contemptible husband, she has been having a long-standing affair with Dominic.
Christine is as much in thrall to the viciously self-centred playboy as is Fina. Will her faith in him be justified? He does make a joke about how she’d better behave or he’ll sell her to an Arab… Hmm.
In her later career as an actor and director, Mai Zetterling explored feminist and sexual equality themes, but in 1960 such ideas didn’t trouble mainstream entertainment. However, one imagines that if Christine and not the aptly named Mouse had been the object of the comment ‘she’s not a bad little scrubber’, she would not have responded as Mouse does, with a gratified simper.
Vaulting ambition
So the plan is hatched and the group assembled. Dominic, Preedy, Toddy and expert safe-cracker Colonel Whitfield (William Hartnell cutting a stylish figure) plot to break through a tunnel from the fictional Belgravia underground station into the embassy vault where the money is stored.
It all starts to go wrong from the beginning — how could it be otherwise with this shower of self-servers — and the ending is perhaps grimmer than expected.
The heist scenes are well directed and quite gripping. It’s fascinating to see how the visual aesthetic of the film is maintained at the cost of credibility.
In a social setting in which everyone is well and formally dressed, the gang hack and chisel their way through the wall with nary a sartorial concession to the nature of the task. Not for them the tracksuits and boiler suits and protective clothing which are familiar from other and later depictions of heists and robberies and hold-ups.
The film throws out rather tantalising glimpses of themes which could be explored. There is Preedy’s view of himself as an outsider, and his attempts to assert himself through attacking the upper class to which he will never belong. And Dominic expresses his resentment that unlike members of this social group he has not had everything handed to him on a silver plate.
Perhaps it’s a mark of the film’s success that it leaves you with a bit of an unpleasant taste in your mouth. Never mind. A browse through a G-plan catalogue will soon put that right.
