''Jazz Boat'' is a 1960 British black-and-white musical comedy film directed by Ken Hughes and starring Anthony Newley,

Anne Aubrey Anne Aubrey (born 1 January 1937) is a retired English film actress. Aubrey was mainly active in Warwick Films in the 1950s and 1960s. She worked with Anthony Newley in such films as '' Idol on Parade'', '' Killers of Kilimanjaro'', '' The Ba ...

Lionel Jeffries Lionel Charles Jeffries (10 June 1926 – 19 February 2010) was an English actor, director, and screenwriter. He appeared primarily in films and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, Golden ...

and

big band A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and ...

leader Ted Heath and his orchestra. It was written by John Antrobus and Hughes based on the 1960 novel ''Jazz Boat'' by Rex Rienits. The cinematographer was

Nicolas Roeg Nicolas Jack Roeg ( ; 15 August 1928 – 23 November 2018) was an English film director and cinematographer, best known for directing ''Performance (film), Performance'' (1970), ''Walkabout (film), Walkabout'' (1971), ''Don't Look Now'' (1973) ...

. Many of the cast and the same director also made '' In the Nick'' (1960) which was a sequel although Newley plays a different role.

Plot

Electrician Bert Harris boasts that he is a successful cat burglar, which leads to his getting mixed up with real thieves who need those special skills for a big jewellery heist. However, Bert was only making a "song and dance" about being a cat burglar. He discovers that it is too late to back out.

Cast

* Anthony Newley as Bert Harris *

as The Doll * Bernie Winters as The Jinx *

James Booth James Booth (born David Noel Geeves; 19 December 1927 – 11 August 2005) was an English film, stage and television actor and screenwriter. He is best known for his role as Private Henry Hook in '' Zulu.'' ''Variety'' called him "a punchy b ...

as Spider Kelly *

Leo McKern Reginald "Leo" McKern (16 March 1920 – 23 July 2002) was an Australian actor who appeared in numerous British, Australian and American television programmes and films, and in more than 200 stage roles. His notable roles include Clang in ...

as Inspector *

as Sergeant Thompson * David Lodge as Holy Mike * Al Mulock as the dancer * Joyce Blair as Rene * Jean Philippe as Jean * Liam Gaffney as Spider's father * Henry Webb as barman * Ted Heath as himself * Frank Williams as man whose bowler hat is knocked off in the market

Production

The book's author Rex Rienits later admitted that he disliked writing novels, but was in a career slump, so decided to write a novel to sell for cinematic rights. Filming started 15 June 1959. A scene involving more than 200 extras was shot at Chislehurst Caves in

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

; on that night, the payroll was stolen, meaning they could not be paid.

Critical reception

'' Variety'' called it "an odd assortment of romance, jazz, musical comedy and youthful crime is poured into ''Jazz Boat''. ...What comes out is largely chaos although some of it is infectiously amusing. Mostly it is vague, disjointed and purposeless. Director Ken Hughes may have been making some sort of an attempt at parody of American crime pix." '' The Monthly Film Bulletin'' wrote: "A juvenile crime story barely strong enough for a B-feature, with guitars smashed over skulls in place of wisecracks as its type of humour, is given a few largely irrelevant songs and a bizarre mixture of characters to become a lively, muddle-headed British musical. ... Anthony Newley's offhand way of jesting gets few chances from the script and, compared with the spirited caricaturing of David Lodge and Al Mulock in the gang, leaves him a most ineffectual hero. The general farce and fantasy mix uneasily with the violent episodes, the more brutal of them centred round a detective, who is not only churlish and quick-fisted in the latest film style but handy with a broken bottle as well." ''

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, vi ...

'' wrote, "While imitating American gangster films, this simple picture also provides a look at the British "

Teddy Boy The Teddy Boys or Teds were a mainly United Kingdom, British youth subculture originating in the early 1950s to mid-1960s and then revived in the 1970s who were interested in rock and roll and Rhythm and blues, R&B music, wearing clothes part ...

" subculture as some amusing situations, though none is particularly memorable."

Leonard Maltin Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic, film historian, and author. He is known for his book of film capsule reviews, '' Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide'', published from 1969 to 2014. Maltin was the film criti ...

called it an "Energetic caper." '' Filmink'' said it "starts out as a crime drama then weirdly turns into a musical (complete with dance numbers) then back into a crime drama again."

References

External links

*
Jazz Boat
at Letterbox DVD * {{Ken Hughes 1960 films British musical comedy films 1960s English-language films Films directed by Ken Hughes Films produced by Albert R. Broccoli Columbia Pictures films Films set in London 1960 musical comedy films Films shot at MGM-British Studios 1960s British films English-language musical comedy films Works by Rex Rienits Films scored by Kenneth V. Jones