The Six Men (1951)

This is actually quite a quirkily constructed little crime noir. It centres around a gang of thieves whom the police seem incapable of catching. Try as they might, they just cannot garner any evidence to arrest and convict these six men. Suddenly, though - their impenetrable armour starts to slip. One by one, they are apprehended for seemingly unassociated crimes until they gradually come to conclude that it is one amongst them who is setting them up. Who might this traitor be? What is most striking about this drama is the setting. A grim and seamy post war London with bombed-out buildings, a thriving black market and some seedy nightclubs where, perhaps, the less said about the quality of the jazz the better? Peter Bull has one of those instantly recognisable, British Bulldog, faces and he steals this ahead of an otherwise unremarkable cast delivering some standard dialogue before a conclusion that does offer us a twist or two (even if we do, kind of, know who is doing the manipulating). At just over an hour, it's decently paced and delivers adequately for an afternoon B-feature. Not great, but good enough.