collapsing staircase takes down villains in crime thriller

[granth]

I've been trying to think of the name of a film in the crime thriller genre that I saw a few years ago in which a gang of villains holds a heroine prisoner at the top of a dilapidated old building, in a room reachable only by climbing up a rickety and half-rotted-away central staircase that saves the day when all seems lost, in a sort of deus ex machina, by collapsing and sending the villains crashing down to the street. I believe it was a British film (though possibly faux British, like an entry in the old Bulldog Drummond series) and probably from the 1950s or earlier. Ring any bells?

[Westengland]

It's one of the Danzingers'/Merton Park ones that was last broadcast on television a few years ago - was that when you saw it, as I did? One of the crooks was Afro-Caribbean, played as an Englishman by an actor whose name I've forgotten, unfortunately. As with many English B Movies and their early TV equivalents, it was interesting for the incidental background it showed to the fiction, apart from the story.I don't want to guess on the title in case I put you in the wrong place.

[Joe Fraguela]

It's Naked Fury from 1959 which starred Reed de Rouen, Kenneth Cope, Leigh Madison, Tommy Eytle and Ann Lynn. A very good british b-movie

[granth]

Yes, that's the one! It has that very memorable (and symbolic) ending. Thanks very much!

[paul kersey]

Best of British Classics 2: Naked Fury / Cover DVD Region 1 US Import NTSC: Amazon.co.uk: Reed De Rouen, Kenneth Cope, Leigh Madison, Arthur Lovegrove, Alexander Field, Tommy Eytle, Ann Lynn, Marianne Brauns, Arthur Gross, Redmond Phillips, Eric Wood
Still available via Amazon, I watched it last night and really enjoyed it !