Kill Me Tomorrow (1957) User Reviews

A Desperate Bargain

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 26 January 2009]

In Kill Me Tomorrow it was Pat O'Brien's turn to be an American actor who was past his prime as a leading man in the states to turn up in a British feature film. The idea was to give it greater marketability in the States. I well remember seeing a lot of these type of films as the bottom half of doublebills in my neighborhood movie theater.

O'Brien who had done a lot of noir type features in America fits comfortably with the genre in the UK. Even his Irish countenance is hardly out of place as so many Irish people from Ulster and from the Republic were living and working in Great Britain.

O'Brien is an alcoholic reporter working for a Fleet Street paper run by editor Ronald Adam. Adam's lost patience with O'Brien, a year before Pat's wife was killed in an automobile accident that he caused driving drunk. Now he's got a second piece of bad news, his son is ill with a tumor behind an eye and needs one quick operation from a specialist in Switzerland. A thousand pounds would cover it.

Ronald Adam has bigger fish to fry than O'Brien's problems. He's running an expose on some criminal rackets in London headed by George Coulouris. A stoolie after giving information to Adam is murdered and Coulouris and assorted hoods come calling. Adam winds up shot and then O'Brien arrives and Adam gives a dying declaration as to who did it.

But Pat's concern is the boy and he makes an unusual bargain with Coulouris. For a thousand pounds, he'll take the fall for him and confess to the murder.

I have to say that this was one of the more unusual plot twists in a film I've ever seen and for that reason it rates a cut above your average noir film. The production values were adequate, no more than that, the players gave a good account of themselves. Lois Maxwell soon to be Ms. Moneypenny in a few years is Adam's niece and even though she sees O'Brien with gun in hand leaving the premises and calls Scotland Yard, she still believes in him.

In fact the scheme is badly thought out, but it was thought out by a desperate man. A timeline and forensics shoot O'Brien's confession full of holes, but he insists on playing it his way as movie favorites do.

Two interesting people have small roles in Kill Me Tomorrow. One is former Light Heavyweight Champion Freddie Mills, a sports hero in the British Isles plays one of Coulouris's thugs. Mills met a tragic end a few years later, a suicide that some think was murder.

The other person was Great Britain's first rock and roll star Tommy Steele. He sings one of his early hits Rebel Rock in a coffee bar that Coulouris owns and is the headquarters for his enterprises. Tommy is not one of the crooks however. Having seen a more mature Steele in Half A Sixpence, Finian's Rainbow, and The Happiest Millionaire, it was interesting to see him in his rock and roll roots. I shouldn't actually say that because Steele as a performer would have been right at home in the British Music Hall Theater and has been for most of his career. He's got an infectious personality and style that has made me one of his biggest fans.

So while O'Brien is in the film for the American market, I've no doubt that Kill Me Tomorrow did well at the British box office with Tommy Steele performing. Kill Me Tomorrow is a good B noir thriller that could hold its own with America's product.

Watch out for the one-eyed teddy bear!

[last-picture-show · 5/10 · 7 February 2007]

This is one of many 1950s British B-pictures which featured an American actor in the lead role, in this case round-faced, turnip-haired Pat 'O Brien. He usually played well-meaning Irish priests or policemen but here he's somewhat unsympathetic, and unconvincing, as Bart Crosbie, a washed-up journalist going through a mid-life crisis. His wife died in a car accident (he was driving), he has a drink problem and now his estranged son (Jimmy) needs an eye operation because of a tumor.

Worryingly the kid neither looks or sounds anything like his dad and has a voice so posh and squeaky it's small wonder the hospital staff didn't throttle the little brat. The hospital scenes with Jimmy are somewhat awkward and uncomfortable with O'Brien looking like he couldn't give a damn. Notice also that little Jimmy's teddy bear only has one eye which seems a bit cruel under the circumstances (or perhaps it was an in-joke).

O'Brien's lack of concern is also evident the end where he and fellow journalist Jill (Louis Maxwell) are waving Jimmy off at the airport when he's traveling to Switzerland for the operation. 'Goodbye Jimmy, goodbye Jimmy my boy' O'Brien mutters unenthusiastically and repeats it in the same bored tone of voice like he can't wait to be rid of the kid so he can have his wicked way with Jill. However you get the impression from the equally unenthusiastic way Lois Maxwell turns away from O'Brien at the end when he is supposed to be kissing her, that she either couldn't stand him or he had really bad halitosis.

There are many more equally ludicrous and unintentionally funny moments in this film which you musn't miss: When Jill (Louis Maxwell) drives up to Scotland Yard to give evidence she not only narrowly misses running over a pedestrian but she also does what is possibly the worst bit of parking ever seen on screen, and this was outside England's Police Headquarters! The cafe scenes with Tommy Steele performing the song rock 'n' roll song Rebel Rock are wonderfully naff as well. Some of the lyrics are not words but Tommy making a lot of strange noises like he's having a seizure, which is a bit disconcerting. And he seems to perform the song over and over again like a human jukebox. Perhaps the producers could only afford to commission the one song and got maximum use from it. Also watch out for the cafe owner (and gangster) George Coulouris and his heavies and the way hang around the joint looking furtive and menacing. Surely anyone would have guessed that they were up to no good. Lastly you have to question the way the doctor (Richard Pasco at his most zombie-like) works out that Jimmy's operation will cost exactly £1,000 and that he needs payment in cash the next day. Surely private medicine doesn't work that way? You get the impression that the whole operation thing was a scam and that half way across the English Channel the doc was going to shove little Jimmy out of the plane and head off to sunnier climbs with the nurse, keeping the grand for himself. Surely that's a better plot that the one they actually used and at least the title would make sense. Watch it at your peril...

A mediocre drama

[geoffm60295 · 4/10 · 9 August 2019]

This is another 50's low budget film that parachutes an ageing American actor, Pat O'Brien into a limp drama, hoping to inject interest and a wider audience. The problem here is with the casting of slow moving O'Brien, who looks overweight and seems frankly bored with the storyline. Credibility is further strained when you see the age of O'Brien's young son in a hospital bed, fighting for his life. The lack of reality is further ratcheted up when elderly and paunchy O'Brien defeats the lantern jawed, Freddie Mills, ex world light heavyweight in a fist fight! Richard Pascoe, plays a doctor but his lifeless performance seems to sum up the film. Also, Ronald Adam, a stalwart of countless British films, is wasted by being miscast as the newspaper editor. The tedious storyline wasn't exactly livened up by the then British rock 'n' roll, toothy, blond Tommy Steele, who appears in a cameo part. His two songs are totally forgettable. Overall, a very dull and ploddy film.

Kill Me Tomorrow

[info-eurokids-787-789014 · 3/10 · 14 September 2013]

This UK, homegrown, studio based movie, was not one of the best films of the period. The great American star Pat O'Brien, who often played a priest or a good guy in his roles, many opposite his real life friend James Cagney, was in life, the nice man he betrayed. On the set of Kill Me Tomorrow, he gave me his dedicated photo and wrote to my mother when he returned to the states. I doubt if movie stars of today would have the time or thought to be so nice to child actors. Lois Maxwell of Miss Moneypenny fame, was also wonderful in her role. However, the film was rather disjointed and Tommy Steel's introduction was marred by his over-long performance. The film can be rented from Amazon and the poster is now available on the Internet. Good fun if you like to see black and white London in the 1950's. Raymond Russell, boy in hospital bed.

Who'd have thought it?

[tony-70-667920 · 6/10 · 18 August 2016]

I won't bother you with the plot, as other reviewers have given plenty of detail.

As so often in films like this, an fading American star was imported. Pat O'Brien was 58 at the time, with what one reviewer's described as a turnip face (given his Irishness, potato face seems nearer the mark.) He looks tired, though given the character is a drunken, depressed widower, that's quite appropriate.

Despite his age and lack of dynamism, O'Brien flattens three villains in a fist fight. Since one of them is played by Freddie Mills, who'd only lost the world light-heavyweight championship seven years before, that scene wasn't totally convincing (English understatement working overtime.)

The heroine is played by the lovely Lois Maxwell, 30 at the time. The character is rather silly (she interferes without knowing the facts, thereby putting O'Brien's son in danger.) The film's main problem is that the leads make a very ill-matched couple, and have zero chemistry.

This is the last of a string of low budget B movies Terence Fisher made in the '50s, all competently made without being inspired. Who would have thought that his next film, "The Curse of Frankenstein," would lead to a whole series of Hammer horrors, mainly directed by Fisher. The budgets for these were probably pretty low too, but he showed a real flair for Gothic horror, though the law of diminishing returns inevitably set in.

A couple of footnotes. The villains operate from the office of a coffee bar in which Tommy Steele performs, too much for my taste. Steele got his start in such a place. And I think this was one of the last films made in Southall studios: the area has changed an awful lot since those days.

"Dated British poverty-row b-pic."

[jamesraeburn2003 · 2/10 · 17 May 2005]

A washed up reporter called Bart Crosbie (Pat O' Brien) blackmails gang boss Heinz Webber (George Colouris) for the money to pay for his son to have a life saving operation. In return he agrees to turn himself in for the murder of his editor, whom the gang killed in order to prevent an incriminating story being printed about them.

Typical poverty-row b-pic of the time directed for far more than it's worth by Terence Fisher, who within months of making this would become one of the leading British horror film directors at the Hammer studio. The script is far-fetched and teen idol Tommy Steele (guitar in hand) was drafted in to sing a poor rock and roll number called "The Rebel" at a coffee bar that acts as a legitimate front for the gang's activities.

Tommy Steele in what is almost a quota quickie!

[JohnHowardReid · 6/10 · 7 November 2013]

Somewhat over-weighted with talk and ending rather abruptly, this amounts to no more than a fair British quota quickie. True, heroine Lois Maxwell, is definitely attractive, but our hero, Pat O'Brien, is certainly showing his years. Although the movie has an "A" running time of 80 minutes, production values hover around the British "B" average. Terence Fisher's direction is competent, but disappointingly dull. However, the film does mark the first movie appearance of Tommy Steele. He has two songs: "Rebel Rock" and "Rock with the Caveman". In addition to Pat O'Brien, who at this stage of his career was not in great demand by Hollywood, the blacklisted U.S.A. exile, George Coulouris, was also on hand. But frankly neither O'Brien nor Coulouris are likely to induce many of the movie's DVD purchasers. Rather, it's keen Tommy Steele fans who will rush to buy the Video Beat DVD. (My cousin actually worked with Tommy in one of his stage appearances, and she told me that he was "a nice kid", absolutely over-awed by his almost instant success).

Trying To Resurrect An Aging Career

[boblipton · 4/10 · 25 November 2019]

Pat O'Brien used to be a top reporter, but he has taken to the bottle since his wife's death. He quarrels with his editor in the newsroom and is fired. He then discovers that his son has a rare deadly disease that only a specialist in Switzerland can cure for a thousand pounds. He goes to the editor's house to make peace and get an advance, but hears gunshot and sees some racketeers leave. O'Brien breaks in and finds the editor dying. He picks up the gun when he hears a noise, but it's Lois Maxwell, the editor's niece and a fellow reporter. The next morning, O'Brien goes to the gangster, George Coulouris, and offers to confess to th murder, to give him and his gunsels time to flee the country for the money he needs.

O'Brien is too old for the part, despite the pep and professionalism he puts into it. The rest of the cast behaves in unlikely ways, especially Lois Maxwell as the dead man's niece who finds O'Brien standing with a gun over her uncle and yet comes to believe he didn't do it. I was also unconvinced by the way O'Brien took out two young hoods in a fight. To add to the issues, Claude Kingston, who plays his son, is one of those nasal, high-voiced drips with a teddy bear that riles me up. They needed someone ten or fifteen years younger.... or to have put O'Brien in a toupee.

OK, British-B flick

[naseby · 6/10 · 16 November 2009]

Another habitual cheapie with another American actor who'd seen better days just to give our American friends the impression they were going to see an American film.

Okay-ish plot, Bart Crosby (Pat O'Brien) plays it pretty well as the sardonic journo with problems, washed up after leaving his 'kid' motherless, due to him being drunk at the wheel one day.

Plenty of support from Lois Maxwell and Robert Brown as those on his former Editorial who think he's lost the plot, but are in belief of his better nature. He's caught by Lois at the scene of Crosby's dead former Editor (Her uncle) who sacked him (Not looking good for him, having picked up the gun and having it in his hand). He's the intention of trading with George Coulouris' gang who ACTUALLY killed the Editor as he was going to do a criminal expose on them. His price is £1,000 to take the rap. This is because his son, Jimmy, needs treatment in Switzerland to the tune of the £1,000 the very next morning to get him over there for the op asap. George Coulouris' gang, are okay about him owning up, reluctantly handing over the money for the favour but insisting they watch and witness him giving himself up to the police. All for little Jimmy's eye op! Ahhh! The police though, aren't in the frame of mind to let him confess to something they don't believe he did - stating the evidence isn't enough! (I still find this unbelievable! I mean, since when!) He gets the money in a pretty abrupt ending seeing Jimmy off on a 'plane with Miss Maxwell which doesn't look much to me like it'd make it to Switzerland, not without in-flight refuelling. Oh and of course, they don't actually see the REAL villains, Coulouris and Co. being arrested for the killing, it's left, if you'll pardon the pun, in the air!

An all right film, for one of those wet Sundays. Look out for a cameo from Al Mulock, as one of Coulouris' heavies, a rather enigmatic actor from Canada appearing in international films when not universally famous - a doctor in Dr. Terror's House of Horror (On a train!) and as one of the gunslingers who gets shot up in the opening minutes of 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly', by Tuco (Eli Wallach), only to survive and have him being shot dead by Tuco later after the latter delivers the famous line: "When you have to shoot, shoot, don't talk!". Good to see Freddie Mills, the ex-boxer cum actor in there as well. Mills and Mulock apparently both committed suicide (Not in a suicide pact around the same time or anything!) with Mills in more suspicious circumstances. Tommy Steele makes a small appearance, though I'm sure with the music he was playing/singing to, he'd rather forget about it in this film - not one of his better moments!

Wake me up after it's over.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 12 June 2019]

This dull British thriller has American actor Pat O'Brien as the father of an ailing child who, having lost his job and his wife, frames himself for the murder of his boss so he can extort money from the real killer to send his son to have the operation he needs. Not only is O'Brien far too old to be believable as the father of a pre teenage son, he's saddled with a ridiculous premise that stretches credibility to the maximum. He's good as always and has fine support with future "Miss Moneypenny" Lois Maxwell as the niece of the murdered boss and George Colouris as the head of a British crime ring. Then there is the special guest star, British Rock star Tommy Steele, pre-"Half a Sixpence", performing in a small cabaret as Intrigue occurs backstage.

While this has some interesting elements which could have made a great thriller, its situations are beyond believability making the script instantly an issue. Fine black and white photography of rarely seen London locations starting off at Fleet Street, making me wonder where the demon Barber lived), and having some tension as O'Brien, wanting to be arrested, is freed by the disbelieving Scotland Yard who are sure that somebody else was responsible for the killing, already having already figured out O'Brien's involvement. This seems rushed through and thus ends up being a disappointment.

Kill Me Tomorrow

[CinemaSerf · 5/10 · 13 February 2023]

"Crosbie" (Pat O'Brien) is a jaded old journalist who is involved in a car accident that robs him of his wife and seriously injures his son. Now facing a bill of £1,000 to send him to Switzerland for urgent treatment, he becomes desperate and turns to the dubious "Webber" (George Coulouris) and offers to take the rap for the recent death of his old boss if he will fund the surgery. What "Crosbie" hadn't figured on, though, was the police actually wanting to get to the bottom of the crime and "Insp. Lane" (Wensley Pithey) isn't convinced he has his man! The only solution for "Crosbie" now might be to team up with fellow reporter "Jill" (Lois Maxwell) and see if they can solve the crime themselves. It took me a while to recognise a very young Richard Pascoe as the doctor and Tommy Steele also features briefly, but otherwise this is all a rather formulaic drama that is probably fifteen minutes longer than it needs to be. It's reasonably paced and passes the time, but you won't recall it afterwards.

And Introducing Tommy Steele

[Maverick1962 · 3/10 · 22 December 2015]

'B' picture mainly interesting to me as I saw Tommy Steele's name listed first and I have tickets to see him in 2016!! Rock on. However, back to the picture. Directed by Terence Fisher and starring American gangster actor Pat O'Brien, near the end of his illustrious supporting career to stars like James Cagney. Quite how Terence Fisher went from this dud to the wonderful The Curse of Frankenstein with Peter Cushing in a matter of months is beyond me. Anyway, O'Brien plays a booze riddled newspaper man who needs a £1000 to get his son cured of an eye tumour that will almost certainly kill him if it's not fixed pronto. He gets involved with gangsters led by George Coulouris and the whole thing becomes a bit convoluted but O'Brien still somehow ends up getting the girl, played by Lois Maxwell (Moneypenny from the early Bond films) who looks young enough to be his granddaughter. Ug! gross, particularly when he tries to kiss her in the final scene and Lois appears to turn her head away. Still, it was funny seeing Tommy Steele rocking away like an idiot which is how these young stars were presented in this type of picture back then. Another reason I love watching these old films is to see the character actors and actresses, most of them long dead. Boxer Freddie Mills, Al Mulock, Robert Brown, Richard Pasco, Ronald Adam, Wensley Pithey, all familiar faces to me. Always worth a look.

Middling crime thriller

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 29 September 2015]

KILL ME TOMORROW is a low rent British thriller from a decade chock-full of such pictures. Many of them were, like this one, rather undistinguished, but still interesting to film fans thanks to their casting of famous and not-so famous faces alongside familiar production figures from the industry. Despite the nondescript storyline, KILL ME TOMORROW is worth a watch thanks to Hammer director Terence Fisher's assured handiwork.

The story is about a washed-up reporter, on the verge of losing his job, whose life falls apart still further when his kid falls seriously ill. Before long he falls in with a criminal gang and must strive to set things right in an increasingly complex and mean-spirited world. The writing isn't exactly stellar here, but it's fun to see American star Pat O'Brien (ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES) in a low rent British film and the supporting cast includes the familiar faces of Freddie Mills, Ronald Adam, and George Coulouris. Lois Maxwell's here too, looking lovely in the decade before she became famous as Miss Moneypenny. Tommy Steele contributes a musical number.