1974 film by Aram Avakian
11 Harrowhouse is a 1974 British heist comedy thriller film directed by Aram Avakian and starring Charles Grodin, Candice Bergen, James Mason, Trevor Howard, and John Gielgud in Panavision. It was adapted by Grodin based upon the novel by Gerald A. Browne, with the screenplay by Jeffrey Bloom. It was made at Pinewood Studios with extensive location shooting in London, Ragley Hall in Warwickshire and at Quainton Road railway station. The film's sets were designed by the art director Peter Mullins. The hand of Assistant Art Director John Siddall was used to paint the cockroaches.
Plot
In England, a small-time diamond merchant (Charles Grodin) is unexpectedly offered the chance to supervise the purchase and cutting of an extremely large diamond to be named after its wealthy owner (Trevor Howard). When the diamond is stolen from him, he is blackmailed into pulling off a major heist at "The System," located at 11 Harrowhouse Street, City of London with the help of his beautiful and wealthy girlfriend (Candice Bergen). The key figure in the theft, however, is the inside man, Watts (James Mason) who works in the vault at The System. Watts is dying of cancer and wants to leave his family financially secure.
Although "The System" has an elaborate network of defences and alarms against intruders, the robbery is carried out at night by gaining access to the roof from an adjacent property and threading a hosepipe down a conduit into the vault, where Watts uses it to vacuum up thousands of rough diamonds out of their drawers. The thieves leave before the robbery is discovered, and when found in the vault in the morning, Watts claims to have eaten the gems. Before he can confess, Watts deliberately swallows poison and dies at 11 Harrowhouse Street. Most of the loot is buried in concrete, to prevent it flooding the market.
Production
Editor Anne Coates said the director "was a real character. He had been a very top editor... But he was totally disorganised. And, so, it was not easy to cut the work in a way. Because, Elliott Kastner wanted a straightforward storyline movie; Aram was the kind of director that shot off the cuff, bits and pieces here and there as he felt like it." She also says Charles Godin "was very difficult to handle" and did not get along with Bergen "so, you know, it caused a lot of problems. But I think the main problem with that film was the scripts, the first script was so much better than the ten they wrote afterwards. Because everybody was putting input into it."[1]
Reviews
Variety gave the film a negative review, stating that "Grodin messes up the film with ineffective shy-guy acting, and clobbers it with catatonic voice-over that is supposed to be funny" and adding that "Howard and Mason appear close to embarrassed in their roles."[2]
Versions
The film has been screened in two versions in the past - both with and without narration from Grodin's character, H.R. Chesser. The version without narration plays under two alternate titles, either Anything for Love or Fast Fortune. Neither version was broadcast often on television; the version without the narration was the most widely available for purchase for a time. The film was released on LaserDisc by Fox Video in Widescreen format and with the narration intact.
