James BellVernon Sewell’s race-against-time crime thriller is a standout entry in the British ‘B’ film tradition. Shooting quickly for Theatrecraft Films, Sewell made economical use of his limited budget and locations to craft a taut-asa- drum account of a bank robbery gone wrong, resulting in the confining of the bank manager and his secretary inside the vault, the oxygen dwindling as each minute passes. Sewell was a mainstay of the British ‘B’ industry through the 1940s, 50s and 60s, though his early career suggested a more auspicious path. He entered the industry in 1929 and had an early mentor in Michael Powell: Sewell was among the crew who travelled to the Scottish island of Foula to make Powell’s The Edge of the World (1937), and The Silver Fleet (1943), Sewell’s first feature as director, was made for Powell and Pressburger’s Archers company. In the 1940s Sewell had success with ‘A’ pictures like Latin Quarter (1946) and the charming The Ghosts of Berkeley Square (1947) but thereafter most of his career was confined to ‘B films’ – he made nearly thirty over the next two decades, spanning thrillers, horror, sexploitation and more. A keen yachtsman, a number of Sewell’s films, such as Ghost Ship(1952) and Dangerous Voyage(1954), had a nautical theme. But he had a particular flair for grimly fatalistic, claustrophobic thrillers, including 1961’s The Man in The Back Seat, starring Derren Nesbitt and Keith Faulkner, in which the action is confined within a car. Nesbitt and Faulkner were paired again a year later, to similarly seedy and memorable effect, in Strongroom. Once overlooked, Strongroom’s reputation has been revived after being hailed publicly by Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese and Edgar Wright. James Bell