The Hi-Jackers is a 1963 British black and white second feature ('B') crime thriller film written and directed by Jim O'Connolly, starring Anthony Booth and Jacqueline Ellis.
Plot Long-distance independent lorry driver Terry meets homeless and unemployed Shirley at a transport cafe and gives her a lift. His vehicle, carrying a valuable shipment of whisky, is then hijacked under cover of a fake road accident. Who tipped off the hijackers about the route Terry would take? Police Inspector Grayson investigates.
Cast Anthony Booth as Terry McKinley Jacqueline Ellis as Shirley Derek Francis as Jack Carter Patrick Cargill as Inspector Grayson Glynn Edwards as Bluey David Gregory as Pete Harold Goodwin as Scouse Tony Wager as Smithy Arthur English as Bert Michael Beint as Forbes Tommy Eytle as Sam Reynolds Romo Gorrara as Joe Ronald Hines as Jim Brady Douglas Livingstone as Tim Marianne Stone as Lil
Critical reception Monthly Film Bulletin said: "One or two aspirations towards originality – Carter's proficiency as a cook, a gangster's almost prudish refusal to take advantage of Shirley's helplessness – cannot disguise the formulary nature of this crime melodrama. The plot is thin and unconvincing; the heroine is one of those tiresomely well-spoken young women whose bursts of spirit (she is not averse to moral blackmail) strike one as both incongruous and unsympathetic. The lorry-drivers are quite well characterised, and Derek Francis brings a touch of class to the gourmet-mastermind which seems, less aptly, to have spilled over into the film as a whole. For a struggling haulage contractor Terry has a remarkably luxurious apartment; there's something gratuitously 'snob', too, about Patrick Cargill's supercilious police inspector."
The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 2/5 stars, writing: "This low-budget crime thriller from the Butcher's studio is set in the rough-and-ready world of trucking. However, British lorry drivers don't have the cinematic glamour of their American counterparts, so identifying the familiar British faces – Anthony Booth (Tony Blair's father-in-law), Patrick Cargill, Glynn Edwards – is the main point of interest here."
References
External links
The Hi-Jackers at ReelStreets