This film is part of Free
Crosstrap
Stuck out in the country, two rival gangs fight it out with increasing savagery.
Overview
Critics were horrified when this pithy shoot-out B picture was released back in 1962. Even now, its nihilism and continual double-crossing can’t help but impress as one rival gang gains the upper hand over the other and a newly-wed couple, caught in the middle, gives as good as they get. It may centre on some stolen jewels in a country holiday home but really it’s about power play and chaos.
Included on the BFI’s Missing Most Wanted list back in 2010, the black and white negatives for Crosstrap were discovered in a film lab just a few a years later and then digitally scanned. At the time of its original release, the Daily Cinema said it included a "climactic blood-bath where corpses bite the dust as freely as Indians in a John Ford western" and that it was an "incredible but lively tale of gang-warfare, packed with hearty action and intrigue, plus a spot of sex for flavour." Robert Hartford-Davis' hard yet very English movie certainly set pulses racing.
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