The Informers (1963 film)

The story concerns the uneasy relationship between a Scotland Yard Detective, Johnnoe, and the Squad Chief, Bestwick, over the formerly traditional use of "snouts" (paid informants). Despite being told that these should no longer be used and to adopt more scientific principles of detection, Johnnoe continues to do so until one of his informants is murdered. He again disobeys orders and pursues his own lines of inquiry but as he closes in on the villains, they frame him for corruption and he is arrested and held in prison. With few friends left on his side of the law, his wife enlists the help of the murdered man's brother.

{{Cast listing|

• Nigel Patrick as Chief Inspector John Edward Johnnoe
• Margaret Whiting as Maisie Barton
• Katherine Woodville as Mary Johnnoe
• Colin Blakely as Charlie Ruskin
• Derren Nesbitt as Bertie Hoyle
• Harry Andrews as Superintendent Alec Bestwick
• Michael Coles as Ben
• John Cowley as Jim Ruskin
• Allan Cuthbertson as Smythe
• Frank Finlay as Leon Sale
• Ronald Hines as Sergeant Geoff Lewis
• Roy Kinnear as Shorty
• Peter Prowse as Mick Lonergan
• George Sewell as Fred Hill
• Kenneth J. Warren as Lou Waites
• Brian Wilde as Lipson
• Peter Bowles as Peter the Pole
• Patrick Jordan as 1st Inspector
• Donal Donnelly as Tommy the Trotter
• Harry Landis as Hicks

}}

The Informers was filmed at Pinewood Studios and at various locations around London, including the Thames Embankment, Westminster, Soho, Paddington, Covent Garden, Hampstead and Golders Green.{{cite web|title=The Informers|url=http://www.reelstreets.com/films/informers-the/|website=Reel Streets|accessdate=21 January 2018}}

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Freshly written and shot, with an eye for realism, against settings that are always recognisably London, this effectively indigenous cops and robbers thriller is the sort of old hat that could probably teach some of our "new wave" directors a thing or two. Without overstraining the point, both Alun Falconer's script and Ken Annakin's direction suggest an observation of life rather than a re-statement of other movies, and enable the excellent cast to use their varied talents just that much more convincingly than such an ingenuously routine theme would seem to demand. This applies particularly to Derren Nesbitt's playboy pimp and Maggie Whiting's very human prostitute, but one is no less drawn to familiar faces, like that of Allan Cuthbertson, playing an unpleasantly officious policeman, and Nigel Patrick fits comfortably into the role of the thwarted stalwart of the Yard, whose semi-detached home is, incidentally, quite splendidly authentic. Vigorously directed throughout, the film winds up with an appropriately uninhibited, old-style free-for-all, that could scarcely have been mounted to better effect."{{Cite journal |date=1 January 1963 |title=The Informers |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1305822240/F4BE14E40EE043BAPQ/1 |journal=The Monthly Film Bulletin |volume=30 |issue=348 |pages=158 |via=ProQuest}}

British film critic Leslie Halliwell said: "Basic police melodrama, with clumsy script and jaded direction."{{Cite book |last=Halliwell |first=Leslie |title=Halliwell's Film Guide |publisher=Paladin |year=1989 |isbn=0586088946 |edition=7th |location=London |pages=513}}

The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 2/5 stars, writing: "Nowadays British crime films of the 1950s and 1960s look rather quaint, with the dogged attempts of performers to either act tough and growl in East End argot as they plan their blags, or portray the clipped decency of the Scotland Yard flatfoot. While eminently watchable, this police procedural crime drama from director Ken Annakin is a case in point. Nigel Patrick is the archetypal inspector in a mac, while Frank Finlay is as brutal as a pantomime villain."{{Cite book |title=Radio Times Guide to Films |publisher=Immediate Media Company |year=2017 |isbn=9780992936440 |edition=18th |location=London |pages=464}}

In Sixties British Cinema, Robert Murphy writes: "With its convincing underworld characters and quarellsome, imperfect policemen,The Informers represents something of a high point in the development of British crime films. The characters might be stereotypes – the tough but honest detective and his loyal, long-suffering wife, the seedy criminal mastermind and his dangerously flashy front-man, the hard-bitten but vulnerable whore, the irredeemably shifty snout – but they come across as quirkily individual and there is little of the cosy moralising that afflicts so many British crime thrillers. A handful of critics did notice its potential at the time, but it is depressingly symptomatic of attitudes to British cinema that the film has subsequently vanished into critical oblivion."{{Cite book |last=Murphy |first=Robert |title=Sixties British CInema |publisher=British Film Institute |year=1992 |isbn=0851703240 |location=London |pages=209–210}}

{{reflist}}

• {{IMDb title}}
• [https://www.allmovie.com/movie/underworld-informers-am119135 The Informers at AllMovie]
• {{TCMDb title|94439}}

{{Ken Annakin}}

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Category:1963 films

Category:British crime films

Category:1963 crime films

Category:Films directed by Ken Annakin

Category:Films scored by Clifton Parker

Category:Films shot at Pinewood Studios

Category:1960s English-language films

Category:1960s British films

Category:English-language crime films