A classic crime film that was greeted as a controversial “exposé” of prison life and the underworld, Joseph Losey's The Criminal follows an underworld figure, Johnny Bannion (Stanley Baker), through the destruction of his creative spirit to an ignominious confrontation with death. Bannion, in Losey's words “a man with brains, humor and power,” is released from prison, where his self-assured nature elevated him above the others. He returns to his gang and becomes immediately involved in a racetrack heist. He seems to have it all--wealth and confidence--but all the world's a prison to him until a love affair promises him freedom. Greed and treachery intervene, and the man whose ego couldn't be killed is destroyed. Set against a jumpy jazz score and camerawork that seems to brood upon the fragmented nature of modern existence, The Criminal opens on an intense prison-cell poker game, and closes on a group of convicts shuffling around in a circle. In between, Losey develops “a comment on society that has made money its god and hence imprisoned itself in a vicious circle” (Robin Wood).