Whitley Bay Film Festival presents PAYROLL (1961) (PG)
There is no honour amongst thieves.
Gritty north east crime films didn’t start with Get Carter, take Payroll
for example, a superb British thriller filmed around iconic locations in
Newcastle and Tynemouth from 1960. From the moment the blag starts on The
Tyne bridge, the tension mounts.
Michael Craig & Billie Whitelaw star in this classic heist movie. A gang
of hoodlums carry out an audacious daytime robbery of a security van but
things go seriously amiss. The stakes are dramatically raised when a
security man is murdered. Things rapidly spiral out of control.
Although the film is a stark and paranoid depiction of early 1960s England,
it’s delivered with perfect pace and cool. The action is non stop and the
film is underpinned throughout by the hippest Brit Jazz score from Reg
Owen. Payroll is a compelling ride with great local resonance.