The Hi-Jackers

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.

Plot
Long-distance independent lorry driver Terry meets homeless and unemployed Shirley at a truckers’ 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."

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."