Recent discovery: Band of Thieves

This droll 1962 British item is a 69-minute music video disguised as a film.

That’s overstating the case, but not by much. The Lyn Fairhurst/Harold Shampan script is a threadbare excuse for a dozen lengthy “live” (diegetic) performances by clarinetist/vocalist Acker Bilk and his Paramount Jazz Band, as the modest story proceeds.

 

Bernard Stanley “Acker” Bilk and his combos were known for “trad jazz,” a popular 1950s and ’60s British offshoot of American Dixieland. (The major difference between the two is Dixieland’s use of “collective improvisation.” Instead of granting each musician individual solos, Dixieland draws on the specificity of each instrument to create a single unique and harmonious sound.) Bilk’s instrumental hit, “Stranger on the Shore” became the UK’s best-selling single of 1962, spending 55 weeks on the UK charts; it also became the second No. 1 single in the States by a British artist. Given Bilk’s popularity — enhanced by his signature goatee, bowler hat and striped waistcoat — it’s no surprise that a feature film would be crafted around his talents. He certainly couldn’t have dreamed of a better showcase.

 

In terms of cinematic history, this film is noteworthy as the second feature boasting cinematography by Nicolas Roeg, who’d later trade his camera for the director’s chair after helming three consecutive hits in the early 1970s: Performance, Walkabout and Don’t Look Now.

 

Events here open in a prison, where Bilk and six fellow convicts are doing time for a variety of minor-league crimes: pickpocketing, failure to pay taxes, and so forth. At the suggestion of a wealthy, progressively minded matron known only as The Duchess (Maudie Edwards), the prison governor (Geoffrey Sumner) — an avid trad jazz fan — encouraged Bilk (playing himself) to form a septet, in order to keep the other convicts happy. The six sidemen are Bilk’s actual combo members: banjoist Roy James (as “Dippy”), pianist Stan Grieg (as “Haggis”), trombonist Jonathan Mortimer (as “Fingers”), trumpeter Colin Smith (as “Flash”), bassist Ernie Price (as “The Mole,” forever trying to dig his way out of prison), and drummer Ronald McKay (as “Scouse”). Their little gang also includes an oversized trustee dubbed Getaway (Arthur Mullard), who works as the prison cook and provides valuable intel via portable walkie-talkies.

 

Bilk and his boys actually have it made, with a variety of perqs and little cons that keep them happy and well-supplied. Getting to perform is a bonus, although not for the forever scowling Chief Warder (Michael Peake), who loathes trad jazz.

Director Peter Bezencenet opens the film as Bilk and his band entertain their fellow prisoners with the up-tempo title theme: a brightly cheerful tune with a 1-2-3/3-5 motif and a propulsive 4/4 beat. It then immediately repeats as a nondiegetic cue behind the title credits, when Bilk and the boys are escorted back to their cells; The Mole’s efforts to shove his massive bass into his cell is the first of the film’s many sight gags.

 

Buoyed by the success of her initial suggestion, The Duchess encourages the governor to send Bilk and the band on the road. With Getaway at the wheel of an ancient motor coach, the septet makes the rounds of Wormwood Scrubs, Pentonville, Strangeways, Dartmoor and Holloway, during a montage set against some energetic traveling jazz dubbed “Behind Bars (Jazz at the Jail).” It also boasts a heavy 4/4 beat and features Haggis’ slick keyboard work, Bilk’s sparkling clarinet solos, and sounds a bit like “I’ve Been Workin’ on the Railroad.”

 

Soon thereafter, to the Governor’s chagrin, Bilk and the boys finish their sentences and return to society. The Duchess once again intervenes, and introduces them to Derrick (Jimmy Thompson), who prefers to be called “Dandy”: a foppish swell who fancies himself an entrepreneur. He spends the last of his inheritance to open a coffee bar dubbed Thieve’s Kitchen, with Bilk and the boys as the house band; they perform on a stage built to resemble a prison cell. Once the place is finished, the septet rehearses — to the delight of a lone maid — with a melancholy tune highlighted by an oft-repeated 4-2 motif (“Coffee and Ackercake”). Dandy, meanwhile, hires three hostesses and finds himself attracted to Anne (Jennifer Jayne), a helpful young woman who lives nearby.

 

The joint is hopping on opening night: jammed to the walls with young couples gyrating to a mid-tempo dance number by Bilk and the band. He then introduces pop singer Carol Deene, playing herself, who warbles through a flirty tune called “Kissin’.” (Deene shot to fame in late 1961 and early ’62 with half a dozen chart singles, and — that same year — hosted her own show on Radio Luxembourg. Her career was cut short by serious car accidents in 1966 and ’74.) After Deene exits the stage, Bilk and the boys delight the crowd with a slower instrumental ballad.

Dandy encourages the band to cut a single; Bilk obligingly enters a studio and records a peppy vocal called “All I Wanna Do Is Sing,” backed by his band. Bezencenet and editor Tristam Cones get modestly inventive with a clever split-screen montage that finds Bilk singing alongside multiple versions of himself. The record proves enormously successful, at which point Bilk and the boys embark on a performance tour ... with a side hustle cooked up by Dandy. Thanks to his “in” with The Duchess, and turning up at all the “right” parties, Dandy has targeted half a dozen wealthy aristocrats and made copies of the keys to their cash-filled safes. Bilk and the boys jump at this opportunity for extracurricular larceny, and systematically empty the safes during a touring montage sequence set to a lively instrumental reprise of “All I Wanna Do.”

 

The police, being thick-headed, fail to connect the coincidental locations of these robberies with the band’s concert stops.

 

Those capers successfully completed, and back at Thieve’s Kitchen, the band performs alternate arrangements of the title theme and “Coffee and Ackercake,” once again to a packed house filled with boisterous dancers doing the Twist.

 

Then Dandy gets greedy.

 

Having learned that another of The Duchess’ close friends — Mrs. Van Der Ness (Charmian Innes) — owns a priceless diamond necklace, Dandy yearns to steal it. He arranges for the band to perform at her next party; they play a sorta-kinda bossa number with a 1-2-2-3 motif (“Smoochy”), as Dancy dances with Mrs. Van Der Ness, ogling her necklace the entire time. The combo segues into a smooth, slower arrangement of the title theme that boasts a tasty piano solo. 

 

Later that night, long after the party has concluded, a soft solo horn backs Dandy, as he enters the sleeping Mrs. Van Der Ness’ bedroom ... but he has trouble opening the safe behind the painting directly above her pillow. Amazingly, the woman never wakens ... even when Dandy is forced to use a hammer on the combination dial! Such complications aside, he successfully snatches the necklace.

 

Back in his office at Thieve’s Kitchen, Dandy hides the necklace inside Bilk’s clarinet; the plan is to fence the jewels in Amsterdam, where the band is scheduled to perform in a few days. Meanwhile, as a gesture of thanks to their original prison Governor, who has announced his retirement, the band gives a farewell performance featuring an alternate arrangement of “Behind Bars.” Back in Dandy’s office, Anne drops by for a visit; he renews his efforts to kiss her, but she continues to resist him ... and with good reason. When the clarinet is dropped, and the necklace spills out, Anne is revealed to be an undercover police officer. 

“A fair cop,” Dandy later laments.

 

With everybody once again behind bars — the Governor renounces his retirement, since he’s once again surrounded by his favorite band — The Duchess arranges for Bilk to keep his planned debut on BBC-TV ... with guards in the studio, of course. Bilk obliges with a slow, mournful clarinet lament (“Lonely”), backed by an apparently invisible band ... which can’t be his boys, because they’re watching him live on a prison television set! Fade to black, and the end credits.

The film failed to generate a soundtrack album, but Columbia did release an “extended play” 45 single that runs almost 12 minutes, and includes the title theme and the five tunes named above. Bilk took small dramatic roles in three more films in 1963 and ’64, but then stuck with studio recordings, concerts and roughly 100 guest appearances on various TV variety shows, well into the early 21st century. Despite a diagnosis of throat cancer in 1997, aggressive treatment helped him live to the respectable age of 85; he died in 2014.