It’s a new branded line for Kino Lorber — English thrillers from the 1940s and ’50s, remastered and looking good. Jean Simmons is tormented by a greedy lover & husband in ‘Cage of Gold,’ and a fanciful Edgar Wallace mystery sees Scotland Yard trying to prevent a murder by a diabolical criminal called ‘The Ringer.’  Then, Sean Connery stars as a noble cat burglar in the gangster tale ‘The Frightened City.’  The Collection I stars include Herbert Lom, David Farrar, Yvonne Romain, James Donald, Madeleine Lebeau, Bernard Lee;, Donald Wolfit, Mai Zetterling, Greta Gynt, William Hartnell, and Denholm Elliott.

Brit Noir Collection I
Cage of Gold, The Ringer, The Frightened City
Blu-ray
KL Studio Classics
1950-1961 / B&W / Street Date May 26, 2026 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Jean Simmons, David Farrar, James Donald, Yvonne Romain, Madeleine Lebeau, Herbert Lom, Bernard Lee; Herbert Lom, Donald Wolfit, Mai Zetterling, Greta Gynt, William Hartnell, Norman Wooland, Denholm Elliott.
Cinematography: Douglas Slocombe, Edward Scaife, Desmond Dickinson
Production Designer: Michael Relph, William Hutchinson, ?
Art Director: Jim Morahan, ?, Maurice Carter
Costumes: Anthony Mendleson, Joseph Bato, ?
Film Editor: Peter Tanner, Bert Bates, ?
Music Composer: Georges Auric, Malcom Arnold, Norrie Paramor
Written by Jack Whittingham, Paul L. Stein; Lesley Storm, Val Wallace, Edgar Wallace; Leigh Vance and John Lemont
Produced by Michael Balcon, Michael Relph; Hugh Perceval
Directed by Basil Dearden, Guy Hamilton, John Lemont

We don’t know offhand if we’ll be seeing more entries in Kino’s  ‘Film Noir the Dark Side of Cinema’ series, but they’ve just inaugurated a promising new line called ‘Brit Noir.’  The Brit Noir Collection I gathers three StudioCanal holdings into a trim set. Additional collections are already in the pipeline. Some of the shows are on the shorter side, so instead of individual discs in separate keep cases, Collection I has two discs in one keep case, with two features sharing a disc.

Collection I has a desirable trio of titles, two we hadn’t seen and one we wanted in an improved transfer. The common denominator between them is actor Herbert Lom, who has a cameo in one, is a featured player in another, and a main character in the third. But we also get some impressive early career appearances, stars like Jean Simmons, Sean Connery, James Donald, Denholm Elliott, Mai Zetterling and Yvonne Romain.

The definition ‘Brit Noir’ is given a truly elastic interpretation. All the pictures are about crime, but one is an ’emotional melodrama,’ another an almost farcical Edgar Wallace mystery, and the third a hardboiled gangland tale.

Cage of Gold
1950 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 83 min.
Starring: Jean Simmons, David Farrar, James Donald, Madeleine Lebeau, Maria Mauban, Herbert Lom, Bernard Lee, Grégoire Aslan, Gladys Henson, Harcourt Williams, Leo Ferre, Michael Balfour, Sam Kydd, Arthur Lowe.
Cinematography: Douglas Slocombe
Production Designer: Michael Relph
Art Director: Jim Morahan
Costume Designerf: Anthony Mendleson
Film Editor: Peter Tanner
Incidental Music Composer: Georges Auric
Screenplay by Jack Whittingham, story by Whittingham and Paul L. Stein
Produced by Michael Balcon, associate Michael Relph
Directed by Basil Dearden

1950’s Cage of Gold is an Ealing Studios film, but not one of their famed pictures despite starring the young Jean Simmons. For the most part very well directed by Basil Dearden, its screenplay presents some intriguing situations, but arrives at a resolution that feels almost arbitrary.

(no spoilers) Young artist Judith (Jean Simmons) is the steady girlfriend of a doctor, Alan (James Donald), but is swept off her feet by the romantic attentions of an old boyfriend from wartime, Bill (David Farrar). Predictable complications set in almost immediately, so that, two years later, the characters are entangled in a hopeless mess of blackmail and veiled threats. In addition to Judith, Bill has two Frenchwomen on his string, Parisian club singer Marie (Madeleine Lebeau of  Casablanca) and Antoinette (Maria Mauban), the flighty daughter of banker Duport (Gregoire Aslan).  ↓

Even starting to tell this story would lead to spoilers. Jean Simmons was just getting ready for the move to Hollywood, where her career would be hampered by the attentions of Howard Hughes. She’s excellent playing a woman a bit older than her 21 years. The talented David Farrar is well-known from two  Powell-Pressburger classics but didn’t become a bigger star despite his good looks; his absolute cad-dastard is Cage of Gold’s strongest performance. Dependable James Donald  (Bridge on the River Kwai,  Quatermass and the Pit) again plays the ‘dependable’ boyfriend that girls revert to when the dastards dump them. The acting of all three is exceptional, as is the direction of Basil Dearden.

The story, unfortunately, galumphs from one stock situation to the next, without giving us enough reasons to care about Judith’s predicament. First we get a ‘fun and frolic’ montage of Bill’s romantic onslaught, which is supposed to explain Judith’s picking the wrong man. But she’s no longer a teenager, so we don’t really respect her choice. From then on we get ‘convenient’ coincidences – a plane crash, for one – that two or three years later put Judith into an even worse pickle. We again have little sympathy when Judith plays along with the proven slimeball Bill, and witholds vital information from Alan, ‘for his own good.’

The climax really takes the cake. Extricating the ‘nice’ people from a major mess involves more fabulous coincidences plus tricking the audience.

Herbert Lom gets third billing but his character is almost a cameo; Bernard Lee is okay as a stock ‘sympathetic’ detective from Scotland Yard. Pretty Madeleine Lebeau sings at the Paris club ‘La Cage d’Or.”  It’s a nicely designed set, but the theme doesn’t fit into the big picture. Nobody in Cage of Gold is a bird in a gilded cage. For that matter, for all of Cage of Gold’s impressive acting and smooth direction, it is a story with a trick ending, but that lacks a point or even a reason ‘to be.’

Judith becomes a victim by making stupid mistakes and refusing to learn from them. Alan stays quietly true-blue and does the manly thing, proving his love for Judith with a whodunnit cliché.  The loathsome Bill’s depredations are really something to see, but he also lacks depth … he’s a convincing creep, but without the charm that real creeps can often project. We understand why the handsomely produced Cage of Gold hasn’t a higher profile.

We discuss the transfers and the extras at the end of the review.

The Ringer
1952 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 78 min.
Starring: Herbert Lom, Donald Wolfit, Mai Zetterling, Greta Gynt, William Hartnell, Norman Wooland, Denholm Elliott, Dora Bryan, Charles Victor, Walter Fitzgerald, John Stuart, John Slater, Edward Chapman.
Cinematography: Edward Scaife
Production Designer: William Hutchinson
Costume Designer: Joseph Bato
Film Editor: Bert Bates
Music Composer: Malcom Arnold
Written by Lesley Storm, Val Wallace from a play by Edgar Wallace from his novel The Gaunt Stranger
Produced by Hugh Perceval
Directed by Guy Hamilton

We shouldn’t be surprised to see that the English produced their own Edgar Wallace adaptations; it’s just that we’re more accustomed to the later German ‘krimi’ films, with their exaggerated characters and comic book plotting. 1952’s The Ringer may confuse some viewers, as it begins as semi-sober police drama and soon spins in odd directions some of them pulpy and others almost cartoonish. Taken as a good jest for an undemanding audience, it comes as a pleasant surprise.

Adding to the interest is that The Ringer is the first feature by director Guy Hamilton, a very competent talent whose name adorns the most celebrated of the James Bond movies. It becomes obvious that we’re watching an adapted play, when more than half of the action stays in two rooms. But Hamilton keeps things moving; cops and crooks are almost chummy when they gather at a handsome London house.

Scotland Yard and The Underworld go on alert when news comes that an arch-criminal called ‘The Ringer’ was not drowned in Australia — he has instead come back to London to take revenge. The Yard’s Inspector Wembury (Charles Victor) and special agent Bliss (Norman Wooland) know that The Ringer has vowed to kill attorney Maurice Meister (Herbert Lom). They take the unorthodox step of sending Cockney ne’er-do-well Sam Hackett (William Hartnell) to help watch over the Meister manse. Meister is a notorious criminal lawyer, and his previous secretary died under mysterious circumstances. She was The Ringer’s sister, hence the threat of vengeance. Hackett rushes to have workmen install bars in Meister’s windows, along with a complicated alarm system.

Insp. Wembury brings along expert criminologist Dr. Lomond, a fussy Scotsman who poses awkward questions to most everyone he meets. He’s particularly hard on Cora Ann Milton (Greta Gynt), the socialite wife of The Ringer.  ←  She hangs around, avoiding direct questions and trying to throw the cops off the scent. There’s even more drama afoot. The devious Meister is putting romantic moves on his new secretary Lisa (Mai Zetterling), a displaced Austrian girl who has overstayed her visa.  ↑  The shifty Meister has already framed her boyfriend John Lemley (Denholm Elliott), just to get him out of the way.

The police action is fairly serious, but the side stories veer into broad music hall comedy. Transparent crook Sam Hackett sometimes talks in Cockney rhyme. He can’t walk down a street without getting arrested; his girlfriend (Dora Bryan) shows up for more comedy. The swanky Cora Ann Milton readjusts her mink and puts on airs, fending off the elderly Dr. Lomond’s advances. Only the meek Lisa is without irony — Meister wants to spirit her away to America while he flees the vengeful arm of The Ringer. The Swedish actress is quite good … she’d soon reinvent herself as  a noted film director.

The game cast goes through the motions in what feels almost like a game of ‘Clue.’  The Ringer is known to be a master of disguise, so we wonder which of several Red Herring characters might be the mystery man in disguise. The story goes so far as to introduce one newcomer at the door, played by a rather famous actor, just to draw us off the scent.

Herbert Lom gets the best role and top billing, with plenty of opportunities to wax sinister and tell cruel lies to poor gullible Lisa. But everybody gets a shot at the limelight. Future Dr. Who William Hartnell has a jolly good time doing his cheeky Cockney act, playing to the cheap seats; he’s lots of fun.  →  We’re more accustomed to seeing Donald Wolfit shout and waggle his enormous eyebrows in a much more theatrical way; we barely recognize him at first.

This Wallace adaptation has no dark & stormy night and no killer skulking about with poisoned darts or a weird weapon as a killing tool. The play has been opened up a bit, with some parallel action at police stations and a third-act rooftop chase above Piccadilly Circus — we see the ‘London Pavilion’ marquee for the Burt Lancaster movie Ten Tall Men.

The overall tone is strange — the foreshadowing with guns and an alarm system is transparent. Many potential ‘Ringers’ are introduced. Anyone over 10 years of age ought to figure out The Ringer’s identity by the halfway mark, he’s so obvious. Unlike Cage of Gold, the wrapup to this mystery is efficient and clever. It’s also no surprise, but in a fun way. The show ends on an odd note, and leaves itself open to the notion of a sequel. But no ‘The Ringer Strikes Back’ was produced.

The Frightened City
1961 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 97 min.
Starring: Herbert Lom, John Gregson, Sean Connery, Alfred Marks, Yvonne Romain, Olive McFarland, Frederick Piper, John Stone, David Davies, Tom Bowman, Robert Cawdron, George Pastell, Patrick Holt, Kenneth Griffith, Marianne Stone, Vanda Godsell, Bruce Seton, Kenneth J. Warren.
Cinematography: Desmond Dickinson
Art Director: Maurice Carter
Music Composer: Norrie Paramor
Screenplay by Leigh Vance story by Vance and John Lemont
Produced by John Lemont, Leigh Vance
Directed by John Lemont

Distributed by Anglo-Amalgamated,  The Frightened City is a stock tale in which a hoodlum tries to consolidate the London rackets. Some fairly classy gangster movies were coming out of England at the time, such as Joseph Losey’s  The Criminal and Val Guest’s Hammer Film   Hell Is a City. This one is less prestigious.

The director is John Lemont of a certain Herman Cohen big monkey film; don’t hold that against him. Frightened City is a bit cheap but lively. Eight years after The Ringer Herbert Lom is a little older and getting ready to play comedy with Peter Sellers. The big source of interest in the film is none other than Sean Connery, exactly two features away from being cast as James Bond.

Shady accountant Waldo Zhernikov (Herbert Lom) has ambitions to build himself a crime empire in London. He’s already in cahoots with one small-time racketeer, club owner Harry Foulcher (Alfred Marks of  Scream and Scream Again). Hiding behind Harry, Waldo unites a number of racketeers into a larger syndicate, with himself as its silent mastermind. He tells Harry to get rid of his rougher ‘collection men’ who terrorize small businessmen like restaurateur Sanchetti (George Pastell). He also secures a singing job for his French girlfriend Anya (Yvonne Romain) at Harry’s Taboo Club. That cuts down on stage time for the local songstress Sadie (Olive McFarland).

Harry complies on both counts. He knows Sadie’s boyfriend, a rooftop burglar (a ‘ladder man’) who is perfect to be the new enforcer. Paddy Damion (Sean Connery) needs money to support his ex-partner Wally (Kenneth Griffiths of  Circus of Horrors), who is paralyzed from a fall. The athletic Paddy can persuade with charm as well as force, and the protection rackets are soon running smoother than ever. Trouble comes from two directions. Waldo insists that the syndicate expand into a lucrative extortion scheme targeting big-time building contractors. That doesn’t sit well with syndicate partner Alf Peters (David Davies), who hires ‘yobbos from Birmingham’ to back up his play.

Paddy isn’t happy to be double-crossed by Harry, and Waldo is predictably miffed to learn that Anya has defected to Paddy’s arms. Hovering on the periphery is Det. Inspector Sayers (John Gregson of  Battle of the River Plate), looking for an opening to start making arrests.

The Frightened City has some definite klunker dialogue, as the writers seem more inspired by American gangland tales than their homegrown cosh & razor boys. Desmond Dickinson’s camerawork is good but a lot of the lighting is high-key, lending little atmosphere to the show’s fairly good sets. There is some good second unit work; we love the street scenes behind the titles, showing a theater district that reminds us of the fantasy streets in the recent  Last Night in Soho. We see a marquee for Never On Sunday and legit theater fronts for Irma La Douce and A Man for All Seasons.

The very large cast includes a surfeit of young actresses in small roles, giving us thoughts of why producers made movies like Frightened City.  ←  This was Yvonne Romain’s big year for career visibility and she’s gowned to accent her eye-catching figure — as reflected in the ad art used on the disc cover. We think Romain’s voice may have been dubbed. Less-known actress Olive McFarland is very good in the kind of role that normally went to Billie Whitelaw.

Herbert Lom strolls through his part. Alfred Marks has some lively scenes to play. We’re more than impressed with Sean Connery, who shows himself fully capable of charming the audience and making something special of his good-guy crook character. We immediately remember old interviews with director Terence Young, who spoke often of coaching and teaching the ‘rough’ Scottish actor about table manners and fine clothing, to achieve a suavity appropriate to James Bond 007. This show spells out the transformation. Cat burglar & arm twister Paddy is great with the rough stuff and catnip for the girls, but he sometimes looks a tad awkward in a suit and tie.  →  One can imagine possible Bond evaluators being on the fence regarding his suitability for the 007. It can’t have helped that Ian Fleming was recommending actors like David Niven, and even Hoagy Carmichael.

In other words, The Frightened City is a superb audition film for Sean Connery to jump to the next level.

We have to say that the film’s soundtrack score is …. not helpful. It ping-pongs between cues that don’t fit too well — strange guitar riffs, cha-chas, and overstated drum and percussion scoring. The title theme would be suitable for a Bruce Brown surfing movie. Some cues are overloaded with bongos, as if pointing Sean the way to Jamaica and Dr. No.  In the long run The Frightened City is for Sean Connery fans looking to see him just before superstardom struck.

The KL Studio Classics Blu-ray of Brit Noir Collection I is billed as a trio of 4K restorations by StudioCanal. That firm’s participation almost guarantees a good transfer, which too us is good news after enduring years of English and European movies with shoddy transfers, often converted from PAL to NTSC but still running 25 frames a second. When a Kino / StudioCanal disc presents minor technical problems, like the superb  Pool of London, we believe they’ve done their very best.

I’m defensive because the beginning of Cage of Gold has a few issues, that didn’t offend. Its film element looks a little rocky in the first reel — the source appears to have suffered damage that shows in an uneven granularity and contrast. It looks much better in just a couple of minutes. Some of the audio is near the edge of distortion, with dialogue a bit harsh. Madeleine Lebeau’s song ‘The Night is Ours’ comes across fine.

The Ringer and The Frightened City are picture perfect. The 1961 film fills our widescreen monitors with its 1:85 transfer; when we see a shot that looks a tad light, we tend to think the issue is the original photography. Frankly, Cage of Gold is so artfully filmed, we didn’t mind.

Kino finds commentary ‘duos’ for each picture, conversational talk-tracks as opposed to lectures by authors and academics with special research to offer. All are informative and good ideas slip through for each, even if we’re sometimes hearing the expected bio information, bracketed with general opinions and retreats to more generalized statements. Julie Kirgo is always welcome; her tracks have the presence of a coffee table situation and she always has a good thought to mull over. Just as we’re thinking that C. Courtney Joyner and Bruce Scivally are doing a relaxed podcast, they’ll come forwards with information about these films that was news to me.

Kino has already listed the contents for two future Brit Noir releases. On June 30th will arrive  Collection II, featuring thrillers starring Jack Hawkins. Planned for July 28 is a  Collection III. It has three titles we recognize, starring Maggie Smith, Richard Attenborough and Michael Craig.

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Brit Noir Collection I
Blu-ray rates:
Movies: Cage Good; Ringer Very Good; City Good, but it has Sean Connery, so Very Good
Video: Cage Good – minus; Ringer & City Excellent
Sound: Cage Good Ringer & City Excellent
New audio Commentaries:
Cage of Gold by Bryan Reesman and Max Evry
The Ringer by Julie Kirgo and Peter Hankoff
The Frightened City by C. Courtney Joyner and Bruce Scivally.
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: Two Blu-rays in Keep case
Reviewed: May 7, 2026
(7513brit)

Visit CineSavant’s Main Column Page
Glenn Erickson answers most reader mail: cinesavant@gmail.com

Text © Copyright 2026 Glenn Erickson