I have seen a great many heist movies, yet have never seen one as economical as 1957’s The Flying Scot (a.k.a. The Mailbag Robbery). This UK production has three criminals on a passenger train trying to steal a wealth of old money on its way to London to be destroyed, having been pulled from circulation. They have a recurring scheme they pull, almost as an unconscious rehearsal for that big heart, where two of the crooks occupy the compartment immediately adjacent to the room in which valuable property is stored on a train. Under the ruse of pretending to be newly married, they are able to draw the curtains and be left in peace without drawing undue attention.
We first see them doing this scam in a stunning sequence at the beginning. All they have to do is pry away a seat cushion from tacks along the top, remove a couple of screws, and they find themselves facing the back of the seat in the next area. This is all that is standing between them and their bounty of mail in transport. They empty the mail bags into unmarked ones, throw them out the window at a designated place, and a man waiting under a bridge retrieves them.
What is fascinating is how the three work together effortlessly without exchanging a word. In fact, there isn’t anything discernable said by anybody in the first thirteen minutes of the picture. I was a bit disappointed when somebody finally spoke, as it broke some sort of spell.
Lee Patterson plays the head of this little gang. Kay Callard is his right-hand woman. In something of a twist for a film of this kind at that time, Callard is definitely not interested in Patterson romantically. In fact, she doesn’t seem interested that way in anybody in this film. The most emotion she shows is a bit of compassion towards the third gang member, a veteran criminal (Alan Gifford) who is suffering from a perforated ulcer.
It was necessary we see a successful score done so smoothy so we would later be aware of the many ways the second escapade is going badly. Really, things go wrong to such an extent that I felt false hope it would end well for these crooks, if only because of a karmic balance I expect in films.
Both train journeys will follow roughly the same beats, and we will see the same stock footage recycled for train stations and exteriors. This gives the sequences a slightly off feeling akin to déjà vu. I know the reuse of stock footage was due to economic necessity, but it makes for a more interesting experience, as it seems to telegraph something is going to go wrong.
One obstacle is the seats are different. There’s now a solid wall behind the cushion. That’s after a struggle to get the cushions off, as the screws have been replaced with rivets. Fortunately, Gifford has a backup plan and has brought along an electric drill. He also brought along a portable radio to drown out the noise. This is the kind of career criminal I can respect. Unfortunately, the ulcer has decided to give him the beatdown this night and he is sweating bullets.
Patterson is also sweating bullets, when he isn’t about to start firing them. At different times, Callard or Gifford have to diffuse situations before Patterson unloads into various strangers the gun he has unwisely brought with him. These people include Kerry Jordan as a drunk who is inexplicably determined to annoy what is ostensibly a newlywed couple, and Jeremy Bodkin as an incredibly obnoxious little shit. Given this is a British film, along with the age of it, I’m guessing Bodkin is an American child visiting from the future and is just really good at quickly adopting a different accent.
In addition to some quirky characters, there is a weird recurring musical motif employed, a strange mutation of “The Wedding March”. It’s like that classic tune got beaten up in an alley behind a bar and is stumbling its way back into the street. This was a bizarre musical choice, even if it relates to the nature of the scheme where two of the crooks pretend to be newly married.
Aside from a few elements, The Flying Scot doesn’t deviate much from a standard heist film. At only 70 minutes long, it doesn’t have much choice but to be in and out as fast as the trio working a score. I found its precision and conciseness highly admirable, and I recommend this to fellow fans of heist movies.
Dir: Compton Bennett
Starring Lee Patterson, Kay Callard, Alan Gifford
Watched on StudioCanal UK blu-ray (region B)