Strongroom

Vernon Sewell's 1962 tense crime drama Strongroom is well regarded by some. Three first-time bank robbers try and pull off a heist. Their lack of experience shows as events start taking turns for the worse. The manager Mr. Spencer (Colin Gordon) and his secretary Rose Taylor (Ann Lynn) are locked in the airtight vault. The thieves, Griff (Derren Nesbitt) and the brothers Len and Alec Warren (Keith Faulkner and W Morgan Sheppard), realising what they have done, try to put things right.

The BFI restoration of the film is of course of a high standard. The main features on their Blu-rays always are. It certainly brings Sewell's penchant for expressionism to life, along with the crispness of the claustrophobic action.

When it comes to the special features, the audio commentaries by Dr Josephine Botting and Vic Pratt bumble along pleasantly. The pair drop little snips of information on the cast, crew and locations. One of them, Pratt, did their driving test around there. It gives a sense of place, a lived reality to Sewell's work. There is also a long interview with John Trumper, the editor of Strongroom, about his career.

That is pretty much standard fare but what makes the features special is what else there is. The Man In The Back Seat is the film Sewell did the previous year. Derren Nesbitt and Keith Faulkner star in another crime gone wrong thriller. It's a one hour long second feature with a tight script. A botched robbery and road trip round London with a dying man in the back seat. There is also Footpads from 1896, a one minute snippet of silent era violent crime.

In A Test For Love, a 1927 public information drama, Sewell warns against the dangers of VD while promoting early diagnosis. Donovan Winter's Awakening Hour from 1957 features a number of tales that intertwine a London as it starts to wake from slumber. There are deliveries, robbery and childbirth, all without a word of dialogue.

The final feature is After Dark, directed by Mike Dodds and edited by John Trumper. This public information film presented by Colin Welland seems a little incongruous on the disk. It is in colour and very definitely made for TV. But its subject, the dangers of driving at night, and especially the rain, is thematically in keeping with Strongroom and The Man In The Back Seat.

Reviewed on: 20 Feb 2026