General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Sitting Target

Sitting Target is a 1972 British crime thriller directed by Douglas Hickox, starring Oliver Reed as a convicted killer who escapes from a maximum-security prison to murder his wife after learning she is pregnant by another man. It was produced by Peerford, Ltd. and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and it is based on the 1970 novel Sitting Target by Laurence Henderson.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Release	February 1972; United Kingdom and United States; 93 minutes (AFI also records a 99-minute version); Metrocolor; MPAA rating R²
Principal cast	Oliver Reed (Harry Lomart), Jill St. John (Pat Lomart), Ian McShane (Birdy Williams), Edward Woodward (Inspector Milton), Frank Finlay (Marty Gold), Freddie Jones (MacNeil)¹
Source	Novel Sitting Target by Laurence Henderson (London, 1970); screenplay by Alexander Jacobs²
Key crew	Cinematography Edward Scaife; editing John Glen; music Stanley Myers; production design Jonathan Barry; special effects John Stears²
Production	Mid-September to late October 1971 at Twickenham Film Studios and on location; working title Screaming Target²
Censorship note	Described as one of the first British films given an 'X' rating entirely for on-screen violence³
Availability	Never released on Blu-ray and unavailable in any format in the UK as of a 2025 revival screening, which used a high-definition 35mm scan sourced from the US³

Spoilers

Plot

Harry Lomart, a hardened criminal serving a fifteen-year sentence in a maximum-security English prison for killing a man during a robbery, expects his wife Pat to wait for his release. When she visits after five months without contact, she announces that she wants a divorce and is carrying another man's baby. Harry smashes his fist through the glass barrier separating prisoners from visitors in an attempt to strangle her, and is thrown into solitary confinement.²

On returning to his cell, Harry tells Birdy Williams, held in the next cell, that he plans to escape to kill Pat. Birdy proposes they escape together, and one night Harry, Birdy, and a third convict, MacNeil, break out of their cells, scale the prison walls, and drop onto a prearranged passing truck. MacNeil goes his own way; Harry and Birdy take a boat to London. Inspector Milton alerts Pat to the escape and posts marksmen on the roofs around her apartment building with motorized patrols covering the area. Harry attaches a sight to his rifle and proceeds to her building.²

The two convicts also intend to recover loot hidden by a gang member, Marty Gold, whom they threaten to murder if he does not cooperate. They acquire a Mauser pistol that converts into a sniper's rifle from a gun dealer who crosses them, and Harry's plan is to shoot Pat from afar by luring her onto the balcony of her high-rise apartment on a public housing estate.⁴

Production

The film was shot from mid-September to late October 1971 at Twickenham Film Studios in Middlesex and on location, under its working title Screaming Target.² A July 1972 review in Films and Filming reported that rules in Britain against shooting inside maximum-security jails meant the prison scenes had to be filmed instead at Dublin's Arbour Hill and Kilmainham facilities in Ireland, as well as in Clapham, England.¹ Kilmainham Jail, by then abandoned, was also used for The Italian Job and McVicar.⁵

Early plans differed from the finished film: trade-press items from July and August 1971 reported that Carter De Haven was to be the film's executive producer and that Tony Musante was to appear in the cast.¹

Locations and the railway sequences

The film is notable for its extensive use of the railways around Clapham Junction in south-west London. The British Railway Movie Database records aerial and ground-level shots of the lines around the station, including a scene with Reed and McShane onboard a 4 VEP unit passing Wimbledon depot, with Reed alighting at Clapham Junction's platform 7, filmed for real rather than by back-projection. The final chase takes place in the yards around Battersea and Stewarts Lane, within sight of Battersea Power Station.⁶ Location hunters have also identified the Winstanley Estate, Wandsworth Bridge, Sporle Court on Winstanley Road, and streets in Battersea and Twickenham among the filming sites.⁷

Reception and standing

Contemporary and later assessments place the film among the grittier British crime thrillers of the early 1970s. The Cinema Museum's 2025 screening notes describe it as an action-packed revenge thriller overshadowed by Get Carter (1971) and Villain (1971) and now mostly forgotten, while crediting Hickox with keeping the film moving at breakneck speed and Edward Scaife with striking photography.³ A 2021 essay on 1970s British cinema calls it one of the grittier crime thrillers of the period, a cuckold's-revenge story that begins with quiet tension reminiscent of A Man Escaped (1956) before exploding into set pieces that juxtapose mundane backdrops with perilous stunt work.⁸ A Cinema Retro review of the Warner Archive DVD calls it gritty and highly entertaining, praising Reed as a formidable villain and McShane as his cheery but ruthless partner, while noting some poor rear-screen projection shots in the climactic car chase.⁴

The film's censorship history is a recurring point in its reception: it is described as one of the first British films to be given an 'X' rating entirely for on-screen violence.³ In the United States it carried an MPAA rating of R.²

Availability

As of the September 2025 Lost Reels screening at the Cinema Museum in London, the film had never been released on Blu-ray and was unavailable in any format in the UK; that screening used a rare high-definition 35mm scan sourced from the US.³ A Warner Archive DVD release exists in the United States.⁴

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works) › 1970s films

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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