Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

alexanderdavies-99382 I had quite high hopes for this British crime film. "Payroll" has promise without being exactly unpredictable or creative in the plot department. Unfortunately, I found this film to be mainly tedious and uneventful. A poor narrative doesn't exactly help. A good cast has gone to waste. Billie Whitelaw - a fine actress - has next to nothing to do throughout the whole story. She swears vengeance against the gang in question but spends most of her time in twiddling her thumbs! The opening 20 minutes is pretty good. After the robbery scene though, it is downhill all the way. The film just seems to plod along aimlessly. The running time of 105 minutes is far too long and should have been about 15 minutes shorter. The bloke who played the investigating police officer is absolutely hopeless! He has no screen presence, no charisma and is so wooden you could knock nails into him. Where was John Gregson when he was needed?? He would have made something of the same role. "Payroll" is supposed to be set in Newcastle. However, there is no one who can put on a reasonably convincing Geordie accent. Definitely not worth seeing again.

sheridanelliot Payroll is a product very much of its time, borrowing elements from the urban realism of fifties and sixties British cinema upon which to hang its fast-paced, wages-of-sin morality tale. The film is set in Newcastle (though you'd never guess it from the accents) and features strong performances from Michael Craig and Billie Whitelaw, with Françoise Prévost sizzling as the femme fatale par excellence.The film starts out as a by-the-numbers heist thriller, before taking a sharp turn into territory that almost anticipates the revenge movie vogue of the seventies and eighties. The parallel story lines are handled adroitly, as is the animal attraction between Katie (Prévost) and Mellors (Craig), although William Lucas's turn as Katie's useless husband lacks subtlety.Payroll is still an engrossing, entertaining and even mildly shocking watch. One weakness which will jar with the modern viewer is the incongruous hot jazz score; silence would have been preferable and more suited to the film's aesthetic.Well worth a watch, even half a century on.

screenman I saw this as a kid at the cinema with my father on its release, and much later on television. Things had certainly dated the second time around, but that's not really the movie's 'fault'. In 1961, censorship was still pretty strict as regards stuff like the depiction of criminal violence. And of course, the villains must never be seen to succeed. At the same time - as other commentators have mentioned - it was filmed on Tyneside but without the 'Geordie' accent. The strength of that regional voice was still so marked at the time as to have been largely incomprehensible to the general (read, home counties) British public. It certainly wouldn't have been understood across the Atlantic. So; safe and clearly-spoken actors were parachuted in. And why not? Authenticity is not much use if it's incomprehensible. Ten years later, even in the much grittier 'Get Carter', how many strong regional accents do you hear? Jack Carter himself is played by London-born-and-bred Micheal Caine. Whilst Ian Hendry, and John Osborne were likewise southern boys. In fact, the only genuine northerner with a substantial role was Alun Armstrong. The 'accented' rest mostly came from the midlands. It would take another 20 years (1991) and the appearance of Jimmy Nail's 'Spender' before the authentic voice of Tyneside would finally be heard in crime drama. So give it a break.The players did pretty well for what was, as a British production, an evidently limited budget. Tom Bell was excellent. His was a sampler of what would later be realised as 'Frank Ross' in the well-crafted TV serial 'OUT', and later 'Prime Suspect'. Micheal Craig was adequate as a slimy-smart master villain. Dunno 'bout the French bird. Maybe to southern middle-class film-making luvvies, a French accent was easier on the ear than an English northern one. The build-up of the plot was well paced and tense. The depiction of the robbery itself was extremely grim. You don't see the sort of preposterous gore and slaughter of a modern flick with its multiple camera sequences and endless flash-cutting, but it was dramatic enough and menacing enough to convey a very plausible sense of violence. The simplicity itself made it more convincing. That's something the slick directors of today with their plethora of special-effects seem to have forgotten. The flawed bank-robbery in 'Heat', for example, is no more tense for all of its mayhem and gunfire.I agree that the story lost a little of its edge towards the end. The concept of a vengeful woman bringing the baddies to book was itself not a very original idea, being an element of Graham Greene's 'Brighton Rock'. But all the gang got their desserts in suitably unpleasant ways, and right finally prevailed.I must also mention the unusual theme/incidental music which was rather daring for its time. A spartan 8-note base guitar riff like something concocted by 'The Shadows' provided extra layers of tension or respite, depending upon the tempo of the moment. It was simple and effective, and carried a surprising sense of menace when the jazz band upped the pace. One is again reminded of 'Get Carter, or even 'Pelham 123'.I wouldn't exactly call this a 'gem' of a movie, but then it certainly wasn't bad either. A movie of the time, like 'Hell Drivers' or 'Frightened City'; you certainly got your money's worth, but not much else. I'm giving it 7/10, which seems fair.

malcolmgsw This has just been released on DVD by Optimum in a very clear print.I first saw it on its original release at the ABC Golders Green on 28th May 1961,sitting in the circle for which i paid the price of 4/-(20p).My view at the time was that it was an excellent thriller.I still find it to be very entertaining but i do have a couple of complaints.Despite being set in Newcastle there is not one character or even bit part player who has a Geordie accent.We have all sorts of other "foreign" accents from Michael Craigs Rada accent,to Kenneth Griffiths welsh and Francoise Orevost and her french accent.What on earth was she doing in this film,she was not a big name in this country the only answer was that she must have been a close friend of the producer!The film is fine till it gets to the last 20 minutes.Quite frankly it is so implausible that it ruins what has gone before.I felt that the writers had just run out of ideas how to end this film.Also it has to be said that Michael Craig is good as a light comedian but a serious actor he ain't.