Three Crooked Men

Three Crooked Men is a 1958 British 'B' crime film directed by Ernest Morris and starring Gordon Jackson. It was written by Brian Clemens and Eldon Howard.

Plot
Three crooks break into a store hoping to gain access to the bank next door. The store keeper has remained in the rear of the store after a drunken fight with his wife, the men take him hostage. A passerby, a bank employee, hears him shout knocks on the front door, tries to help, but he too is captured. The two kidnapped men are dumped in the country eventually getting free and are recognized/arrested as the "wanted men" in news reports. Under questioning the police don't want to believe them as the missing shop owner and missing bank employee seem to have committed the crime. While awaiting court the two men return to the store come across a photo which had been dropped during the break-in and decide their best chance is to track down the thieves themselves.

Cast

 * Gordon Jackson as Don Wescot
 * Sarah Lawson as May Wescot
 * Eric Pohlmann as Masters
 * Philip Saville as Seppy
 * Warren Mitchell as Walter Prinn
 * Michael Goodliffe as shop customer
 * Michael Mellinger as Vince
 * Kenneth Edwards as Inspector Wheeler
 * Frank Sieman as Constable Jason
 * Peter Bathurst as Mr Bond
 * Arnold Bell as Mr Brady, the bank manager
 * Michael Allinson as photographer's Assistant
 * Len Sharp as Joe, proprietor of café

Critical reception
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "This film falls between two stools: it builds up some suspense as a crime melodrama; it is occasionally interesting as a character study of two men, Wescot and Prinn, who imagine themselves to be failures, but, as a result of the events in the story, recover their sense of purpose. But the two halves are awkwardly joined, and despite good performances from Gordon Jackson and Warren Mitchell, the long arm of coincidences is sometimes violently wrenched."