The terseness of the one-word title perfectly fits the low-keyed demeanour of this laconic heist movie that just a couple of years earlier would have been shot in black & white but now had to be in colour (but with results so pleasing to the eye I'm not complaining).

The initial car chase promptly brought Peter Yates to America to repeat the trick but seeing it staged in the narrow streets of London rather than in San Francisco in 'Bullitt' (which could have been built for the job) the results were thus ten times more harrowing; and the film that follows is far more coherent.

ROBBERY is yet another British heist film, heavily influenced by the real-life Great Train Robbery which filled headlines a few years previously. Director Peter Yates, of BULLITT fame, does a good job handling the proceedings, injecting the requisite suspense and yes, there's another decent car chase here too. The ensemble cast is spearheaded by a typically tough and taciturn Stanley Baker and features solid turns from the likes of Barry Foster, George Sewell and Frank Finlay. The robbery takes up the second half and is handled realistically with a minimum of intrusive music, and the whole thing is quite engrossing.

A group of criminals led by sly mastermind Paul Clifton (an excellent performance by Stanley Baker) devise an intricate plan to rob the Royal Mail train on its route from Glasgow to London.

Director Peter Yates, who also co-wrote the intelligent script with Edward Boyd and George Markstein, relates the gripping true story at a steady pace, generates plenty of tension, maintains a serious no-nonsense tone throughout, adroitly uses a plain no-frills documentary style that grounds the premise in an utterly credible workaday reality, covers in fascinatingly meticulous detail the precise planning of the heist, and stages both an exciting car chase and the thrilling robbery itself with utmost skill and aplomb. The ace acting from the tip-top cast rates as another substantial asset: Joanna Pettet as Clifton's fed-up wife Kate, James Booth as the shrewd and determined Inspector George Langdon, Frank Finlay as timid banker Robinson, Barry Foster as smartaleck driver Frank, William Marlowe as the pragmatic Dave Aitken, and George Sewell as the greedy Ben. Kudos are also in order for Douglas Slocombe's crisp cinematography and John Keating's spare, yet still stirring and spirited score. An on the money film.