Five Days (1954)

User Rating:

5.4/10   

Director:

Montgomery Tully

Writer:

Paul Tabori (writer)

Release Date:

25 June 1954 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Plot:

A failed business deal forces James Nevill to blackmail his weak-willed friend into murdering him so that his wife can collect his insurance, but circumstances suddenly change.

Plot Keywords:

Business Deal | Blackmail | Murder | Archeological Dig | Trafalgar Square

Cast

Dane Clark	...	James Nevill
Cecile Chevreau	...	Joan
Paul Carpenter	...	Paul Kirby
Thea Gregory	...	Andrea Nevill
Anthony Forwood	...	Glanville
Arthur Young	...	Hyson
Howard Marion-Crawford	...	McGowan (as Howard Marion Crawford)

Also Known As:

Paid to Kill (USA)

Runtime:

75 min | 71 min (DVD)

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #16940, General Audience)

Filming Locations:

Bray Studios, Down Place, Oakley Green, Berkshire, England, UK

Company:

Hammer Film Productions

Quotes:

James Nevill: [to Joan] This I can handle. Anything I can see and touch and feel, I can handle.

PAID TO KILL (Montgomery Tully, 1954) **1/2

I'd always been interested in catching some of the films from Hammer's pre-horror boom; so far, the only title I'd come across was PHANTOM SHIP (1935) which was made a couple of decades before the studio reached its peak period but which, presciently, starred one of the era's horror icons – Bela Lugosi.

Anyway, Hammer apparently made a whole slew of ultra low-budget noirs featuring either faded American stars or second-tier leading men. This one, then, happened to be shown on late-night Italian TV and, knowing it's been released on DVD by VCI, I made it a point to check it out. It turned out to be a decidedly modest but not unpleasing little film: the star in this case is Dane Clark (not exactly top rank, you see) and, as I lay watching, felt that he wasn't really noir material – an opinion which, incidentally, I would change the very next day when I saw this same actor in the superior French-made GUNMAN IN THE STREETS (1950)! The plot, though far-fetched, is engaging: Clark's business fails and, in order to provide for his wife, proposes to have himself killed so that she can collect on his insurance; soon after, his fortune unexpectedly turns and he desperately seeks to stop his killer from carrying out the assigned task!

Even if I watched the film dubbed in Italian, the London settings and character types offer a whole different atmosphere to the American noirs – the same thing goes for the French locations of GUNMAN IN THE STREETS – and this does help keep one's mind off the measly production values. The denouement provides a few surprises – Clark's wife emerges a villainess (which allows him free rein with the devoted secretary who had really loved him all along), the attempts on his life turn out not to have been done by the person he paid expressly for that purpose – which elevates the whole slightly than would otherwise have been the case. Besides, the film is short enough at 75 minutes not to overstay its welcome or allow the proceedings to slip into tedium. By the way, the original British title of this one is FIVE DAYS (the period of time over which events take place) but got changed to the more evocative PAID TO KILL for the U.S.