The Squeeze is a 1977 British gangster thriller directed by Michael Apted and starring Stacy Keach, Edward Fox, David Hemmings and Stephen Boyd. It was based on the 1974 novel Whose Little Girl Are You? by Bill James (as David Craig). The screenplay was by Minder creator Leon Griffiths.

Plot summary

Before the action depicted in the film begins, Jill had left Naboth who, despite his habitual overdrinking, had managed to keep custody of their two sons. He had lost his job as a police detective and become a private investigator. Jill had since married Foreman and lived with him and his daughter Christine.

In the film, Keith Unslaw leads a gang of criminals, including Barry and Taf and their driver Des. They kidnap Jill and Christine, using them to blackmail Foreman into helping the gang raid his security van full of cash. Foreman employs Naboth to help him recover Jill and Christine without doing any damage to his reputation, which he highly prizes. Naboth follows Foreman to a rendezvous and recognises Keith from a case he successfully investigated when he was a police detective. Naboth tracks the gang to Vic Smith's house where he intends to rescue Jill and Christine but, instead, Keith recognises him and they beat him up, strip him naked and send him home.

The producers of The Squeeze enlisted ex-gangster Bob Ramsey to act as a contact between the film unit and the local underworld to cut down on harassment, due to location shooting in rather undesirable areas where criminals were operating. Local people in the area were hired as extras. Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones accidentally became an extra in the film..

The classic Rolls-Royce driven by Stephen Boyd, is known as the most filmed individual Rolls-Royce motor car , seen in more than 35 films or TV series. Chassis no. SRH2971. Source www. imcdb.org

Apted called it an "informed look at the British underworld" and said Warner Bros considered the film "too indigenous."

Keach said the film "didn't translate in America but it was well regarded and successful in England."

Variety wrote: "The best to be said for it is that it's competently made. Keach suffers some nasty lumps and sundry humiliations, all in the cause of Edward Fox as a security firm exec whose wife and kid are hostages against a million-dollar-plus payoff. Carol White is the terrorized wife, with the complication that she's also Keach's former spouse. David Hemmings is one of the thugs, and Stephen Boyd turns up as the gang mastermind with a resonant Irish brogue. He's an entertaining meanie and tackles the part with relish. The Leon Griffiths screenplay, however, doesn't afford much latitude for the others, excepting Freddie Starr in for comic relief as a reformed hood trying to reform his idol, Keach. The latter should be sympathetic but isn't – blame the character, not him ... pic has little in the way of style and no great surprises. It does, however, have a kind of gratuitous nasty tone."

Leon Hunt found The Squeeze to be "a better sequel to Sweeney! (1977) than Sweeney 2 (1978) ...[with] its "superbly drawn and vividly played villains".

References

  • The Squeeze then-and-now location photographs at ReelStreets