Cinema: German Heist

The Great British Train Robbery is neither great nor British. It is, however, a robbery—by the Germans, of an idea that could have made an excellent picture. The film dramatizes the 1963 hold up of a Royal Mail 'train from which a gang of crooks heisted a world-record $7,000,000, most of it still unrecovered.

At least three different groups of British moviemakers—one of them including Richard Burton—have shown some interest in a film about the truelife Lavender Hill Mob. What has held up production is worry over the country's stringent libel laws, and a...