Cash on Demand (1962)

Director:

Quentin Lawrence

Writers:

David T. Chantler (screenplay) &
Lewis Greifer (screenplay) ...
(more)

Release Date:

October 1963 (UK)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

PERFECT PLAN! PERFECT CRIME! PERFECT SUSPENSE! (original ad - all caps)

Plot:

A charming but ruthless criminal holds the family of a bank manager hostage as part of a cold-blooded plan to steal 97,000 pounds.

Plot Keywords:

Getaway | Burglar Alarm | Snow | Christmas Card | Compulsive Obsessive

Cast

Peter Cushing	...	Harry Fordyce
André Morell	...	Colonel Gore Hepburn (as Andre Morell)
Richard Vernon	...	Pearson
Norman Bird	...	Arthur Sanderson
Kevin Stoney	...	Detective Inspector Bill Mason
Barry Lowe	...	Peter Harvill
Edith Sharpe	...	Miss Pringle
Lois Daine	...	Sally
Alan Haywood	...	Kane
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Vera Cook	...	Mary Fordyce (voice) (uncredited)
Charles Morgan	...	Det. Sgt. Collins (uncredited)
Fred Stone	...	Window Cleaner (uncredited)
Gareth Tandy	...	Tommy Fordyce (voice) (uncredited)

Directed by
Quentin Lawrence

Writing credits
David T. Chantler		(screenplay) &
Lewis Greifer		(screenplay)
Jacques Gillies		(play)

Produced by
Michael Carreras	....	executive producer
Anthony Nelson Keys	....	associate producer (as Anthony Nelson-Keys)

Original Music by
Wilfred Josephs

Cinematography by
Arthur Grant		(director of photography)

Film Editing by
Eric Boyd-Perkins

Casting by
Stuart Lyons

Production Design by
Bernard Robinson

Art Direction by
Don Mingaye

Makeup Department
Roy Ashton	....	makeup artist
Frieda Steiger	....	hair stylist

Production Management
Clifford Parkes	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
John Peverall	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Jock May	....	sound recordist
Alban Streeter	....	sound editor

Camera and Electrical Department
Len Harris	....	camera operator
Tom Edwards	....	still photographer (uncredited)

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Molly Arbuthnot	....	wardrobe supervisor
Rosemary Burrows	....	wardrobe mistress

Editorial Department
James Needs	....	supervising editor

Music Department
John Hollingsworth	....	musical supervisor

Other crew
Tilly Day	....	continuity

Production Companies

• BLC Films
• Hammer Film Productions
• Woodpecker Films

Distributors

• Columbia Pictures (1962) (USA) (theatrical)
• Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (2010) (USA) (DVD) (Included in "Hammer Films Icons of Suspense Collection")

Also Known As:

Runtime:

84 min | UK:88 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound Recording)

Filming Locations:

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

Company:

BLC Films

Trivia:

The famous film company Hammer only invested only a mere £37,000 by 2009 standards for the making of this film.

Goofs:

Continuity: Although failing to shut the inner vault door should result in a burglar alarm going off in 30 seconds, a full 41 tension-filled seconds elapse before Fordyce closes it without harm.

Quotes:

Hepburn:[to Pearson] ... and you might sat, in my opinion, it would take a very clever fellow to rob this bank...
[chucles]
Hepburn:... and I'm an expert.

Movie Connections:

Remake of "Theatre 70: The Gold Inside (#1.3)" (1960)

Soundtrack:

The First Noel

CASH ON DEMAND (Quentin Lawrence, 1961) ***

Having been a bank employee for a number of years now, I guess I have a subversive fondness for caper thrillers, especially those dealing with robberies from vaults and which generally involve hostages being taken. Although they have been known to happen locally even during my tenure, luckily I have never been subjected to one…although last year's mid-year attempt was quite a close call! Anyway, this renowned British example of this subgenre – atypically produced by Hammer Films for all of £37,000! – gives studio stalwarts Peter Cushing and Andre' Morell (formerly paired as adversaries in a famous 1953 TV adaptation of 1984 – that I have yet to watch! - and as celebrated duo of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in their atmospheric 1959 adaptation of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES) arguably the best non-horror roles they ever had during their stay at Bray Studios.

Although the IMDb mistakenly gives the film as being a 1962 production and a mere 66 minutes in length, the truth of the matter is more complicated: its U.S. distributors Columbia released it over there as early as December 1961 but the movie would not be officially screened on its home-turf until October 1963; its running time, then, is actually 80 minutes! Based on an earlier TV episode of THEATRE 70 entitled GOLD INSIDE which also shared the same director and starred Morell but with one Richard Warner enacting the role later handled by Cushing. Indeed, the Christmas period during which the narrative is set and Cushing's own fastidious and glum character make this seem like a smart revisit of Dickens' Yuletide perennial about a certain cantankerous miser who goes by the name of Ebenezer Scrooge! Cushing, in fact, plays a strict and unloved manager of a small banking branch in the suburbs who is as distant and authoritarian with his staff as he seems to be with his wife and child. Morell is the at-once gentlemanly and ruthless thief who poses as an auditor from Head Office out to inspect this particular branch's security standards.

The fact that a recent minor cash difference had just put a young teller (Barry Lowe) and the Chief Clerk (Richard Vernon) at loggerheads with their Manager only exacerbates the tension already present within the enclosed environment and ensures that a series of errors (i.e. security breaches) are committed that enable Morell's ease of entry into Cushing's office from which he will be conducting his cunning plan of filling up four suitcases (which he had Lowe bring back inside from his car parked outside!) with the bank's entire cash holding of £93,000 since there is a direct passage to the vault downstairs from there! This being the early 1960s, it still presents the old-fashioned picture of a branch manager holding one of the keys to the keys to the bank's strongroom with the other held by the Chief Clerk but that situation is all the more plausible for the film being set in a small branch. Morell tells Cushing that he had been planning the heist for a year and one is bound to believe him since he knows every little detail concerning not just the bank's security procedures but also its individual employees! In fact, some accomplices are apparently holding Cushing's family hostage and have orders to kill them if the appropriate signals are not given from Cushing's window. The plan goes smoothly for Morell (despite the occasional slip-up from a broken-down Cushing) but he has not reckoned with Norman Bird (as an eager-to-please bank employee who belatedly checks up on Morell's identity with Head Office) and Kevin Stoney (as an overzealous new Police Inspector in town)...

Apart from the aforementioned stars and a handful of behind-the-scenes mainstays, most of the people involved in the film were not Hammer regulars; even so, it still emerges as one of their worthier straight efforts and is miles removed from even their other thrillers: the telephone sequence with Cushing and his 'family' and the sudden realization of Morell's true intent is more genuinely spine-tingling than anything out of the studio's more renowned chillers! Still, the miniscule budget ensured that no attempt is made to open-up the story (which would have justified this big-screen transposition!) but, on the other hand, this enables it to retain the inherent claustrophobia elicited by its one-set plot; one other quibble involves the finale, which could have been rendered in a more exciting manner! While Cushing's characterization is impressive (it was a pleasure to watch him crack under the strain and become recognizably humane – albeit still reservedly – towards his "subordinates") as always but Morell is a particular standout here (since he was rarely given the opportunity to play lead roles, notable exceptions being the original TV serial QUATERMASS AND THE PIT {1958} – later condensed for a movie remake by Hammer themselves but starring Andrew Keir{!} – and the company's sole foray into living-dead lore THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES {1966}) as the charming villain who can just as easily display his menace through the tone of his voice as the use of his hands. Interestingly, director Lawrence was the man behind the Hammer-esque sci-fi effort THE TROLLENBERG TERROR aka THE CRAWLING EYE (1958; which I just caught up with last year) and THE MAN WHO FINALLY DIED (1963; another thriller featuring Cushing that I have in my unwatched pile). For the record, having already acquired a mediocre-looking copy of the film some years back, I eventually upgraded to a vastly superior one sourced from Sony's barebones disc as part of their "Hammer Films: The Icons Of Suspense" 6-film 3-disc set.