Give Us Tomorrow (1978)
Masked intruders take the family of a bank manager hostage in order to rob his bank.
These sort of home invasion / hostage films were nothing new at the time. Think Hammer's Cash on Demand (1961) but lacking any sort of tension or The Last House on the Beach (1978) and all manner of David Hess oddities for examples with better exploitation. Give us Tomorrow is okay but it's all done in a terribly British non-threatening way.
The films only scenes which might prove controversial involved the sexual awakening of the kidnapped family's daughter. She's seen nude in a couple of scenes, most notably a drawn out sex scene which is completely consensual and not remotely threatening and that's about it bar a lot of shouting. The cast including mother Sylvia Syms and bossy kidnapper Derren Nesbitt are all fine but it's Donna Evans as the daughter who stole the film, leading the kidnappers on and eventually driving the apart. Interestingly Evans is no longer an actress, she only has 11 credits to her name, but now works as a stunt woman, last seen in The Fate of the Furious among 166 other movies.
Give us Tomorrow certainly isn't must see viewing, but it's odd soap opera feel mixed with exploitation gives it a quirky charm and although i'd only class it as a two star film, it's definitely cult and i'm delighted to have it in my British film collection.
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