Build a movie plot around this: What play is the gang pretending to rehearse? Journey's End
A:
A manhole opens at night in an empty street and out climbs Lieutenant-Colonel Norman Hyde (Jack Hawkins) in a dinner suit. He gets into a Rolls-Royce and drives home. There, he prepares seven envelopes, each containing an American crime paperback called "The Golden Fleece", half a 5 note and an unsigned invitation from "Co-operative Removals Limited" to lunch at the Cafe Royal. He then posts the envelopes to seven former army officers, each in desperate or humiliating circumstances.A few days later, the men in question turn up at the Cafe Royal. After lunch, Hyde dismisses the waiters and introduces himself. He hands out the second halves of the 5 notes and asks their opinion of the novel in which a robbery is committed by experts. When they show little enthusiasm, he expresses surprise given their backgrounds and asks: Youre all crooks, arent you? Of one kind or another. Touring the table, pouring out the brandy, he reveals why they were obliged to leave the British Army and their unenviable present occupations:* Major Peter Race (Nigel Patrick) was a transport officer who resigned before his black market ring was uncovered in post-war Hamburg. He earns a poor living in unlicensed gambling and lives at the YMCA. He prides himself on his high breeding and addresses men as "old darling";* Major Rupert Rutland-Smith (Terence Alexander) is the hen-pecked husband of a wealthy young woman who delights in pulling his strings because he depends on her money. She also has affairs to which he can only turn a blind eye;* Captain Padre Mycroft (Roger Livesey) was a quartermaster dismissed for public gross indecency. He is now a con-man impersonating vicars and priests. He also enjoys lewd books;* Captain Martin Porthill (Bryan Forbes) was dishonourably discharged for killing suspected members of the Cyprus-based EOKA terrorist organisation (Cyprus was a British colony at the time). He now works as a piano player in nightclubs and as a gigolo to middle-aged women;* Captain Stevens (Kieron Moore), a one-time fascist...