Bellman and True

Bellman and True (1987)

They kidnapped his son. They forced him to steal 14 million dollars. Then they made their biggest mistake. They trusted him.

Hiller, a computer expert, was bribed by group of bank robbers to obtain details of the security system at a newly-built bank. Having obtained the information, he thought he'd seen the last of the robbers. But now they've traced him and his son to London. They hold the son hostage and force Hiller to decode the information about the alarm and then to take part in the robbery.

Date of release
1987-11-12
TMDB
6.7 / 10 (24)
Runtime
2h 2m
Genres
Drama, Action, Thriller, Crime
Director
Richard Loncraine

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Box office: $226.9K

Bellman and True is a 1988 film based on the 1975 novel of the same name by Desmond Lowden. The film was written and directed by Richard Loncraine. It stars Bernard Hill, Derek Newark and Richard Hope.

Production

Desmond Lowden's original novel was published in 1975 and adapted for radio in 1983.

Film rights were optioned by Verity Lambert at Euston Films. When she left the project was taken over by John Hambley who interested Michael Wearing, a producer at the BBC, in making it as a three episode mini series, running at a total of 150 minutes. (Wearing had produced Jake's End, a 1981 television drama based on a script by Lowden.) Wearing brought in director Richard Loncraine and he worked on the script.

The script had to be updated from 1975 to the 1980s. Loncraine wanted to shoot the film in black and white "for artistic rather than arty reasons". He was not allowed to but managed to give the film what he described as a "Van Eyck wash".

Filming started November 1986 and took place mostly in locations in London. The opening scenes were filmed in and around Paddington Station and the hotel where Hiller stays is near Praed Street. The scene where Hiller is being chased was filmed in Bayswater with Redan Place and the then closed Whiteleys department store visible in shots.

According to Christopher Neame, who worked on the film as a producer, production was difficult and plagued by bad weather, resulting in it going overbudget.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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