“All my sadness, all my joy came from loving a thieving boy.” This soft, yearnful ballad sung by Cleo Laine beautifully bookends Joseph Losey’s The Criminal (US: The Concrete Jungle), an excellent late British noir that uses Stanley Baker’s raw, blue-collar energy to invigorate the story of an unapologetic thief who attempts to get rich in between prison sentences. Upon his initial release from the pen, Johnny Bannion (Baker) returns home to a wild party in his apartment, the next morning waking up next to a naked stranger named Suzanne (Margit Saad) who forms an immediate attachment to Johnny. Caddishly dismissing his regular girl Maggie (Jill Bennett), Johnny immediately jumpstarts his next heist (of a racetrack) alongside the shady Mike Carter (Sam Wanamaker) and a small gang of accomplices, which lands him once again behind bars, but not before burying the loot in a field. Prison rivalries, vendettas, and escape attempts fill much of the film until Bannion finds a way to get back to that field. But what will he find there? It’s an explosive film, the few remote outdoor settings a stark contrast with the throbbing energy of the prison and the party scenes. Krasker’s camera and Mills’ editing harness this energy brilliantly, panning upward three prison floors toward the Roman arches, spotlighting closeups on inmates, frenetic cross-cutting during the violent melee, etc.