Early example of girl power encroaching a manly action flick, or more like widow power in that Billie Whitelaw only initially seems the docile suburban wife/mother, married to the literally driven creator of an armored vehicle...
Whose invention thwarts a gang's plan to rob a factory safe, now mobile... but the equally driven and dangerous Michael Craig (contrasting to the heroic MYSTERIOUS ISLAND role) is hell-bent on the blag going down...
And like the likely inspiration of Richard Fleischer's American Film Noir ARMORED CAR ROBBERY, there are four eclectic crooks, and one of their wives is having an affair with the viciously heartless leader...
Making for a racy romance between Craig and Françoise Prévost, married to inside man William Lucas, who, having stolen the vehicle's plans for the job to happen in the first place, is locked-down at home while progressively coming unglued and rightfully paranoid, one of the plan's two guilt-ridden weaklings along with nebbish bandit Kenneth Griffith: unlike the frantic/paranoid Lucas... the audience's barometer of fear/suspense... Griffith doesn't entirely belong...
Leaving the best for last in wild card Tom Bell, starting a career of edgy, argumentative young thugs and, like in another British heist thriller, A PRIZE OF ARMS, he even blindly rebels against the smarter, much stronger criminal boss...
Their tension setting the unpredictable mood far more capably than widow Whitelaw, whose vengeful trail is intriguing yet sometimes contrived, laughably convenient... Morphing the sparse Noir-suited title of PAYROLL into I PROMISED TO PAY, sounding more Harlequin than Hardboiled.
Whose invention thwarts a gang's plan to rob a factory safe, now mobile... but the equally driven and dangerous Michael Craig (contrasting to the heroic MYSTERIOUS ISLAND role) is hell-bent on the blag going down...
And like the likely inspiration of Richard Fleischer's American Film Noir ARMORED CAR ROBBERY, there are four eclectic crooks, and one of their wives is having an affair with the viciously heartless leader...
Making for a racy romance between Craig and Françoise Prévost, married to inside man William Lucas, who, having stolen the vehicle's plans for the job to happen in the first place, is locked-down at home while progressively coming unglued and rightfully paranoid, one of the plan's two guilt-ridden weaklings along with nebbish bandit Kenneth Griffith: unlike the frantic/paranoid Lucas... the audience's barometer of fear/suspense... Griffith doesn't entirely belong...
Leaving the best for last in wild card Tom Bell, starting a career of edgy, argumentative young thugs and, like in another British heist thriller, A PRIZE OF ARMS, he even blindly rebels against the smarter, much stronger criminal boss...
Their tension setting the unpredictable mood far more capably than widow Whitelaw, whose vengeful trail is intriguing yet sometimes contrived, laughably convenient... Morphing the sparse Noir-suited title of PAYROLL into I PROMISED TO PAY, sounding more Harlequin than Hardboiled.