While the City Sleeps [1956] [DVD]

The damaging flaw in this 18th-century account of highway skulduggery is the miscasting of pop-singer Tommy Steele as ruffian Jack Sheppard, who is pursued - and, to an extent, manipulated by - the venal Stanley Baker (who also co-produced).

But director James Clavell, who would go on to write blockbuster novels such as Shogun and Tai-Pan, makes a brave attempt at re-creating the bawdy, squalid times.