The Hi-Jackers is a 1963 black and white British crime thriller film written and directed by Jim O'Connolly, starring Anthony Booth and Jacqueline Ellis.[1]
Plot
Long-distance independent lorry driver Terry meets homeless and unemployed Shirley at a transport cafe and gives her a lift. His vehicle, carrying a valuable shipment of whisky, is then hijacked under cover of a fake road accident. Who tipped off the hijackers about the route Terry would take? Police Inspector Grayson investigates.
Cast
- Anthony Booth as Terry McKinley
- Jacqueline Ellis as Shirley
- Derek Francis as Jack Carter
- Patrick Cargill as Inspector Grayson
- Glynn Edwards as Bluey
- David Gregory as Pete
- Harold Goodwin as Scouse
- Tony Wager as Smithy
- Arthur English as Bert
- Michael Beint as Forbes
- Tommy Eytle as Sam Reynolds
- Romo Gorrara as Joe
- Ronald Hines as Jim Brady
- Douglas Livingstone as Tim
- Marianne Stone as Lil
Critical reception
Monthly Film Bulletin said: "One or two aspirations towards originality – Carter's proficiency as a cook, a gangster's almost prudish refusal to take advantage of Shirley's helplessness – cannot disguise the formulary nature of this crime melodrama. The plot is thin and unconvincing; the heroine is one of those tiresomely well-spoken young women whose bursts of spirit (she is not averse to moral blackmail) strike one as both incongruous and unsympathetic. The lorry-drivers are quite well characterised, and Derek Francis brings a touch of class to the gourmet-mastermind which seems, less aptly, to have spilled over into the film as a whole. For a struggling haulage contractor Terry has a remarkably luxurious apartment; there's something gratuitously "snob", too, about Patrick Cargill's supercilious police inspector."[2]
The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 2/5 stars, writing: "This low-budget crime thriller from the Butcher's studio is set in the rough-and-ready world of trucking. However, British lorry drivers don't have the cinematic glamour of their American counterparts, so identifying the familiar British faces – Anthony Booth (Tony Blair's father-in-law), Patrick Cargill, Glynn Edwards – is the main point of interest here."[3]
References
- ^ "The Hi-Jackers". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 30 October 2023.
- ^ "The Hi-Jackers". Monthly Film Bulletin. 31 (360): 74. 1 January 1964 – via ProQuest.
- ^ Radio Times Guide to Films (18th ed.). London: Immediate Media Company. 2017. p. 416. ISBN 9780992936440.
External links
- The Hi-Jackers at IMDb
- The Hi-Jackers at ReelStreets
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