Forbidden Cargo (1954) User Reviews

A Deceptively Enjoyable Drug Smuggling Tale...

[P3n-E-W1s3 · 7/10 · 27 March 2018]

Smugglers disguised as Navy Personnel are bringing French Liqueurs into the country. Unfortunately, they decided to drop them off in a nature reserve watched over by Lady Flavia Queensway (Grenfell). Concerned about her beloved bird population being in danger from the transgressors, she informs Customs and Excise of the events. They send Agent Kenyon (Patrick) to check it out. This, in turn, leads them to a more important smuggling ring who are about to bring in a large volume of drugs. Kenyon sets out on their trail, which takes him to the south of France and closer to one of the suspects than he would like.

What makes this such an enjoyable movie to watch is the lightheartedness within the script. This at first centres around Lady Flavia Queensway. Since this is played by the great Joyce Grenfell, how else was this going to be played(?). Then later in situations, especially those between Rita (Sellars) and Kenyon. However, this is not a comedy film and the drama, intrigue, and suspense are evident in every scene. All of this is enough to keep the viewer interested.

Then you add in the acting and it's hard to walk away from the movie until it's finished... even to pause it for a toilet break. The cast is solid and everybody is superb in their roles, though it's Theodore Bikel as Max who stood out the most for me. There's an air of menace and power to his character whenever he's on screen. Even when he's playing the guitar to entertain his guests.

Though there are some places in the story that are realistic and believable it's the south of France section that feels a little awkward. It's hard to believe that Customs and Excise would be able to afford Kenyon's lifestyle as he lives it up, OO7 style. Though this is forgivable as it progresses the story nicely and it's more than a little entertaining to watch.

If you like your thrillers to have a lighthearted entertainment value this film is right in your ballpark. I would recommend this to all thriller and suspense fans out there. It's a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon after dinner.

Want glamour and travel? Join HM customs...

[dj_kennett · 6/10 · 18 March 2001]

This movie is kind of fun. If you imagined that working from Customs was boring and uninteresting, this will change your mind. Kenyon the Customs inspector travels to the South of France, consorts with beautiful women, stays in luxury motels, and generally lives a very high life.

It's not a bad story about a brother and sister drug smuggling ring that is busted open my modest men from Customs in tweed jackets and narrow ties.

Smuggling Does Not Pay.

[gordonl56 · 8/10 · 7 October 2012]

Forbidden Cargo – 1954 H.M. customs receives a phone call about the Royal Navy landing goods and equipment at a private bird sanctuary. Customs contacts the Navy and discovers they know nothing about it.

Inspector Nigel Patrick gets the case and stakes out the beach in question. Joyce Grenfell, the owner of the beach, says that every two weeks there is a landing. Sure enough a DUKW lands and starts off loading dozens of boxes into a large truck.

Patrick follows the truck to an abandoned WW2 airfield where the boxes are stored in an old barracks. That night Patrick breaks in and checks out the boxes. They are full of expensive French Cognac and such. The smugglers must be making fortune in evading the tax man.

Two weeks later, Patrick, along with a dozen Policemen, hide in the dunes and wait for the smugglers to show. The DUKW lands and the Police pounce grabbing the crew, the goods, and the DUKW.

Several days later, the Captain of the DUKW, Eric Pohlmann, who is out on bail pays a visit to Patrick. He offers to spill about his bosses if he can cut a deal on his smuggling charges. He gives Patrick a small bit of info as a good faith gesture. His bosses will be bringing 30 pounds of heroin into the UK in two weeks. Patrick sets up a meeting for the next day.

Pohlmann, however, does not keep the meeting. He has been fished out of the Thames in a less than breathing state. The Police find a letter with a London address and phone number.

Patrick, using a cover story that he is a insurance investigator, checks said address and finds Elizabeth Sellars and Terence Morgan. The brother and sister swear they never heard of Pohlmann.

Patrick does some more digging and finds that the two, have been travelling every two weeks to, and from the south of France.

Patrick follows them to Nice to keep an eye on them. The pair are staying on a yacht with a wealthy shipping heiress, Greta Gynt. Gynt and her man Friday, Theodore Bikel seem to be in the clear as far as Patrick can discover.

All Morgan and Sellars seem to be doing is hitting the party circuit at night and scuba diving by day.

Two weeks go by and Sellars and Morgan fly back to London. Patrick follows and reports to his boss, Jack Warner, he failed to find anything on the pair.

The only clue they have is that one of Gynt's ships is docking that day. The Customs boys board the ship and search it from stem to stern looking for the heroin. They find nothing.

They find nothing because Morgan and Sellars attached a waterproof container under the hull to hold the dope. They had done this during their scuba dives at Nice. The freighter had been docked in Nice at the time. When the ship hits the UK, Morgan will do his frogman act again and retrieve the dope.

It finally dawns on Patrick what is going on when Sellars is captured piloting a small boat near the freighter.

The police and Customs lads track down Morgan and the drugs and the chase is on. We now discover that Bikel and Gynt are in on the dope smuggling. The pair are quickly slapped in cuffs. Morgan escapes in a car but ends up at the bottom of the Thames without the benefit of his scuba gear. Case closed.

The director was Harold French. THE MAN WHO WATCHED TRAINS GO BY is his most well known film. The d of p was C.M. Pennington. His work includes, OBSESSION, DESPERATE MOMENT and 1984,

Patrick was in, UNEASY TERMS, THE NOOSE, SILENT DUST, A PRIZE OF GOLD, THE MAN INSIDE, SAPPHIRE and THE INFORMERS.

Sellars had roles in, GUILT IS MY SHADOW, HUNTED, THE GENTLE GUNMAN, THE BROKEN HORSESHOE, THE LONG MEMORY, RECOIL, 3 CASES OF MURDER and NEVER LET GO. (b/w)

A very British take on a crime film.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 3 February 2020]

"Forbidden Cargo" is a very good crime film. However, it is vastly different from an American crime movie of the era...much of it because instead of action and snappy dialog, this one seems very staid and subdued. This is NOT a complaint. While some of the camerawork is actually reminiscent of film noir, the overall style and energy level are not.

The heroes of this film are not police but members of the Inland Revenue...the British version of the Customs Department. It begins with some very audacious criminals bringing in contraband while using British Navy uniforms and a duck (an amphibious boat). After cracking that case, one of the men captured for this crime mentions that he would like to have his case dropped IF he tells them about a shipment of drugs about to come into the UK. However, before any deal can be made, this man is murdered...and the Inland Revenue sends an undercover agent to France to follow what few leads they have.

As I mentioned before, this really isn't a typical action film....but it is very good when it comes to realism and excitement. For fans of crime flicks, this is one well worth your time.

Childhood nightmare

[trimmerb1234 · 7/10 · 18 November 2017]

Somewhere at the back of my mind was the memory of a film where a speeding car attempts to cross Tower Bridge just as it was opening - and fails. And here it is. It's quite a spectacular scene, making best use of one of London's best known landmarks. That the car is a Rolls Royce adds to the thrills (budgets in 1954 didn't run to crashing a modern Rolls Royce though). It forms the climax of an exciting car chase - and the demise of the villain. The inspiration may well have been the true life story not of a car jumping the bridge but on the 30th December 1952 a red bus full of passengers. By sheer good luck the other side opened more slowly and thus was slightly lower causing the bus to drop some feet but at least get across.

Like IMDb reviews, critics have very mixed opinions on this film. Halliwell, the one time doyenne critic and ITV film buyer dismissed it as "typical British thick-ear". but writer, film critic and author of "A Guide to the Best in Cinema Thrills", John Howard Reid is very complimentary about it in nearly all departments (assuming that the IMDb reviewer above is one and the same person?). I agree with but defer to his much more expert and detailed judgement. Jack Warner again has a good role as a detective - quite different to his ageing avuncular flatfoot PC George Dixon on TV.

A 6.5 out of 10

Entertaining smuggling yarn

[malcolmgsw · 6/10 · 8 February 2016]

This is an entertaining smuggling yarn with an excellent cast.Nigel Patrick is good in the lead role ably supported by Jack Warner,then at the height of his Dixon of Dock Green fame.The chief villain is Terence Morgan assisted by American,Theodore Bikel.Even smaller roles are well cast.The inimitable plays the aristocratic birdwatching,and is hilarious as usual.Eric Pohlman is a gang member who wants to spill the beans to get a shorter sentence.There is a lot of cars dashing around dark London streets.Strangely the package of drugs is supposed to be at Victoria Station but it is clearly Waterloo.Shame that this film now seems to be virtually forgotten.

Rock Solid

[boblipton · 6/10 · 18 January 2020]

Nigel Patrick is a customs man who gets wind of a major smuggling operation. Soon, they'll be bringing in 30 pounds of heroin.The pursuit takes him from quiet London flats, to yachts anchored off Cannes.

It's a fine movie, lavishly produced by Sidney Box, with a strong set of actors, including Jack Warner, Elizabeth Sellars, Greta Grynt, Theodore. Bikel, and Joyce Grenfell in an amusingly toothy, eccentric role.

There's little here that hasn't been done before, but a good script, a good director, Good performers and good camerawork.... what more do you need?

One of the Finest British Noir Detectives Films

[hammondjh-00479 · 10/10 · 11 June 2018]

I watched this on the talking pictures channel as there was nothing of quality elsewhere, and was I in for a very watchable treat. It had a sterling cast ranging from Joyce Grenfell as a scatty upper class birdwatcher through to Nigel Patrick as a dogged customs detective prepares to risk his life to get the smugglers. If you grew up with quality such as this, you'll find the modern "movies", dull and predictable by comparison. I gave it a 10.

The white stuff.

[brogmiller · 6/10 · 17 May 2021]

Leonard Maltin has described this film as 'a modest affair enlivened by a solid cast.' Modest it certainly is and in common with all of director Harold French's output, is sorely in need of enlivening. The film's title promises much but the film itself alas delivers little.

Excellent Nigel Patrick with his trademark trilby is always good value and there is a delightful cameo from Joyce Grenfell as an aristocratic ornithologist. The dastardly drug smuggler is of course a European and is played by Theodore Bikel.

The Inspector Kenyon of Mr. Patrick foils a ring of brandy smugglers but then has to navigate more treacherous waters when tracking international drug smugglers to Cannes, not forgetting to pack his dinner suit of course. We see so little of the playground of the rich however that it might as well be Walton-on-Thames. There is a tantalisingly brief scene in a casino which could have been filmed anywhere. He dices with death in a singularly unexciting underwater sequence at the hands of sneaky Terence Morgan and manages to appeal to the better nature of Morgan's sister, the far from femme fatale Elisabeth Sellars, thereby preventing thirty pounds of heroin from wrecking the lives of a legion of dope fiends.

This is a quaint, harmless period piece which simply lacks an 'edge' and is ultimately defeated by its 'Englishness'. The subject matter warrants a far grittier treatment.

Depressingly, it is timeless in one respect only. It is a grim reminder that although the occasional battle against the evil of drugs may be won, the war is well and truly lost.

Admirably tense and exciting!

[JohnHowardReid · 9/10 · 14 November 2017]

Director: HAROLD FRENCH. Original screenplay: Sydney Box. Film editor: Anne V. Coates. Photography: C. Pennington-Richards. Art director: John Howell. Costumes designed by Joan Ellacott. Furs: Calman Links Ltd. Make-up: Geoffrey Rodway. Music composed and directed by Lambert Williamson. 2nd unit director and production manager: Douglas Peirce (sic). 2nd unit photography: Peter Hennessy. Camera operator: Reginald Morris. Production controller for Pinewood Studios: Arthur Alcott. Assistant director: Ernest Morris. Sound editor: Graeme Hamilton. Sound recording: C.C. Stevens and Gordon K. McCallum. Western Electric Sound Recording. Producer: Sydney Box. Executive producer: Earl St John. Made with the co-operation of Her Majesty's Customs & Excise, the City and Metropolitan Police Forces, the Railkways Executive, the Port of London Authority, the Corporation of the City of London, and Siebe Gorman & Co. Ltd (suppliers of underwater equipment). Interiors filmed at Pinewood Studios. A Sydney Box Production for London Independent Producers, presented by J. Arthur Rank.

Copyright 1954 by General Film Distributors Ltd. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release through Fine Arts Films: June 1956. U.K. release through General Film Distributors: 31 May 1954. Australian release through British Empire Films: 24 February 1956. Sydney opening at the Embassy. 7,700 feet. 85 minutes.

SYNOPSIS: Customs man on the trail of a drug shipment meets a beautiful model.

COMMENT: Admirably tense and exciting with much skillful lensing on actual locations, "Forbidden Cargo" still comes across as an engrossing and suspenseful thriller.

The performances are all that could be desired. The whole cast from stars to bit players turn in highly ingratiating yet solidly naturalistic characterizations. Box's taut script, with its shrewdly observed insights into the dialogue and motivations of real people, certainly helps.

I could start by commending Jack Warner's cleverly etched Chief Investigator who is given a dynamic but agreeably bantering manner, progress through Terence Morgan's caddishly charming heavy, and end up with Hal Osmond's perkily friendly yet defensively officious luggage counterman.

Production values are remarkably high. Credits, including Harold French's tense, creatively forceful direction, Anne Coates' imaginatively rapid film editing, and the attractively moody camera- work by Pennington-Richards, are outstanding in all departments.

Smuggling thrills in a British crime flick

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 12 September 2018]

FORBIDDEN CARGO is a solid British crime thriller from a golden age of similar movies. This one deals with smuggling, with the excellent and underrated Nigel Patrick playing a customs and excise man on the hunt for some jewel smugglers. His investigation leads him to the unlikely sibling pairing of Elizabeth Sellars and Terence Morgan, and the film goes from there. This one's a low budget affair that nonetheless succeeds thanks to a brisk pacing and some well-judged performances from the extensive cast that includes good support from an amusing Joyce Grenfell and Jack Warner as Patrick's boss. Theodore Bikel and Eric Pohlmann also put in solid early turns.

Forbidden Cargo

[CinemaSerf · 6/10 · 25 November 2023]

Nigel Patrick ("Kenyon") works quite well here as a customs and excise inspector who is on the trail of a glamorous brother and sister (Elizabeth Sellars & Terence Morgan) whom he and boss Jack Warner suspect might be involved in a big drug smuggling enterprise. As the plot thickens, he begins to fall a little for the femme fatale and things all get rather too complicated. It features a fun contribution from Joyce Grenfell as the slightly eccentric tweeter (birds) "Lady Flavia' and keep an eye out for a fleeting visit by Michael Hordern. The writing is a bit bland however, and the investigative sides of the story a bit procedural - but the performances are decent enough and the photography helps the drama along well. Worth a watch.

Likeable drug smuggling movie

[lucyrfisher · 8/10 · 30 March 2022]

One of the other reviewers has used "English" as an insult, and sometimes my ancestors' fighting blood begins to boil. However, perhaps I can see what they mean. Joyce Grenfell was genuinely aristocratic, and here her title transcends gumboots and headscarf as she passionately broods over. Her rare sand martins. Elizabeth Sellars is a polite villain, wearing one of those frumpy 50s suits. You feel sure she puts on a hat to go shopping. But then she's revealed as a woman of action as she dons scuba gear to... we find out later. Her co-conspirators include Greta Gynt who appears too briefly, but using her own lovely voice. (How dare anybody dub her?) Thedore Bikel does French chansons better than many Frenchmen and accompanies his speeches with appropriate guitar chords. Terence Morgan drinks too much - perhaps he's afraid of the dangerous part he is going to play.

There is a surreal moment when Morgan climbs out of the Thames, strips off his frogman outfit to reveal a jersey and slacks - and shoes! - and then calmly gets on a BUS with the contraband, which he leaves in the left luggage at Victoria station.

Terribly English? Not enough gunfire, perhaps. And everyone is fraffly well-spoken (apart from Greta). I wish we'd seen more of the fashion show - and the casino.

Going fishing in the Mediterranean for drugs

[clanciai · 9/10 · 6 February 2020]

It doesn't give much indication in the beginning of what is to be, but after the first smuggling incident with the bird woman, an interesting drama starts to build up. Nigel Patrick is the elegant investigator, who soon finds himself up against a professional team of gangsters, where Theodore Bikel has a key role, first appearing as a charming musician with his honeyed voice. No one can suspect anything about what this intriguing character actually is working with, while Jack Warner on his way to alcoholism alarmingly reacts against him from the start, which should raise the suspicion that he feels stuck in a racket that he cannot handle. It is difficult to suspect his sister Elizabeth Sellers of having any part of it, and she actually ultimately saves or tries to save the situation. There are some impressing diving sequences as well, but the main thing is the very intelligent plot and story. It's a great and efficient criminal drama of drug traffic in the early 50s and certainly much ahead of its time.