Offbeat (film)

Offbeat (U.S. title: The Devil Inside) is a 1961 black-and-white British second feature ('B')[1] crime film directed by Cliff Owen and starring William Sylvester, Mai Zetterling, John Meillon and Anthony Dawson.

After a police sergeant investigating a crime gang is murdered, Scotland Yard are frustrated in tracking down the outfit responsible for large scale bank and jewellery robberies.

Though the morals of this tactic are doubtful, the sharp script takes pains to show the criminals as believable human beings: in this it is ably supported by the performances of John Meillon and Neil McCarthy.

"[3] Kine Weekly wrote: "The plot is cast in the League of Gentlemen mould, but skilful characterisation and direction, to say nothing of realistic presentation, gives it a fresh and exciting slant.

The picture expresses sentiments that may raise some eyebrows, but though it subscribes to the proposition that there is some good in the blackest hat it hastily adds that crime doesn't pay.

"[4] Film historians Steve Chibnall and Brian McFarlane describe it as "a work of genuine ideological dissonance which questioned the conventional wisdom about crime and punishment".