The League of Gentlemen (1960) on Netflix
Colonel Hyde has been made redundant after twenty-five years in the army. He invites seven former officers, all dismissed and short of money, to lunch and proposes a bank robbery.
- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb7.2/105,973 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes83%
Trailer
Plot summary
Seven envelopes arrive for seven former officers, each containing half of a £5 note, a crime paperback and an invitation to lunch at the Cafe Royal from Co-Operative Removals Ltd. The recipients are Major Peter Race, Major Rupert Rutland-Smith, Captain Mycroft, Lieutenant Edward Lexy, Captain Martin Porthill, Captain Stevens and Captain Frank Weaver, men in desperate or humiliating circumstances. Their host, Colonel Norman Hyde, knows why each of them left the service. He offers them at least £100,000 apiece to rob a City of London bank, and the men move into his house, living under military discipline with fines for any breach.
Cast
Show all 15 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The League of Gentlemen (1960)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Cary Grant was offered the part of Hyde but turned it down, and Forbes said David Niven also turned it down.
- During filming, Jack Hawkins began to experience voice trouble and fell ill for a few days; it was an early sign of the throat cancer that would cost him his voice and eventually his life.
- The erotic magazines in Mycroft's suitcase at the beginning of the film were borrowed from the set of Peeping Tom (1960), which was being filmed at Pinewood Studios at the same time as The League.
- The portrait of Hyde's wife is a close copy of a portrait of Deborah Kerr created for The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), the film starring Roger Livesey, who plays Mycroft here.
- Two scenes in the script never made it into the finished film: Weaver drinks brandy even after Lexy reminds him he is a teetotaler, and Hyde visits a schoolgirl whose photo on his desk implies she is his daughter.
