The League of Gentlemen - classic film has you rooting for the bad guys

Talking Pictures UK has put the film, released in1960, in its schedules in all its unclipped, unbleeped glory.

Everything about it shouts class – including one of its themes which explores the fate of members of the Army officer class once they return to civvy street. The cast is led by the incomparable Jack Hawkins as Lieutenant-Colonel Norman Hyde. His is a towering presence.

It was heavy-smoker Hawkins’ last film before he succumbed to the cancer which led to the loss of his voice as distinctive as Richard Burton’s. From then on, his films were dubbed.

Frustrated and angry by the way the country treats its war veterans, he plans Operation Golden Fleece – an audacious, meticulously planned heist in the City of London and then recruits a gang to carry it ‘orf’.

The cream of British actors stepped up. It took seven of them to match Hawkins’ stature.

His second in command is Major Peter Race played by Nigel Patrick; Captain “Padre” Mycroft, Roger Livesey; Lieutenant Edward Lexy, Richard Attenborough; Captain Martin Porthill, Bryan Forbes; Captain Stevens, Kieron Moore; Major Rupert Rutland-Smith, Terence Alexander and Captain Frank Weaver, Norman Bird.

What adds to the film’s poignancy is many of the cast – including Hawkins, Alexander, Bird and Patrick, had served during the Second War. Livesey was turned down for the RAF on the grounds of his age, he worked in an aircraft factory instead.

It is a manly, masculine film with the women, one played by Forbes’ wife Nanette Newman, portrayed as gold diggers, playthings, unfaithful, feckless wives or nosy landladies.

The men all have a secret vice. They are rakes, rovers and rogues –living on their wits, guile and charm. You know they’re lags, but every bone in your body is rooting for them.

Hyde uses their vices to blackmail them into going along with his scheme – not that they need much persuading when he dangles the loot in front of them.

The plot is detailed and clever. The script is sharp with one-liners, sprinkled with innuendo and philosophical musings.

“It’s like love. Every time you think it’s going to be different, it’s always the same. It’s the sameness that surprises you,” says Race.

The film can stand many a watch to appreciate clever little touches, like the gang being cast in the shadow of the Old Bailey as it drives to the scene of the planned crime,

Set pieces include Hyde and his motley seven tricking their way into an army base and scarpering with the weaponry they need for the robbery. It is like Carry on Sergeant meets Get Some In.

The League of Gentlemen is the British answer to the USA’s Ocean’s 11 – the original and best Las Vegas heist movie starring Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr and Dean Martin – released in the same year.

But while Danny and his crew are cool and sway to Ain’t That a Kick in the Head, Hyde and his men are buttoned up gents who sing We’re Soldiers of the King, M’Lads. The 1960s had yet to begin to swing in the UK.