Cash on Demand (1961)

Such a frustrating disappointment

Highly Overrated But Still Good

The acting in this movie is really good.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

This Hammer production is not like any other. There's no monster to be found and Peter Cushing plays the (mostly) good guy! He's the Scrooge-like manager of a bank, visited upon by an insurance inspector (André Morell) only to find out he's been duped into assisting in a robbery. Based on a play but nevertheless suspenseful enough to be cinematic. Director Quentin Lawrence wisely keeps his camera moving...whizzing between rooms and up & down stairs. Cushing is dynamite in a role that elicits sympathy despite the fact that he's a mean-spirited company man...goading his underlings with petty complaints (the bank pens are not up to snuff) and constantly reminding them of their workplace class structure where he is, of course, on top. Morell is quite good as well, straddling between efficiency and pure evil. One flaw: what could have been quite an ironic ending is dulled by too much explication. Richard Vernon is exceptional as Cushing's nervous subordinate.

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.

This film is unbelievably riveting from start to finish. I first saw this film in the late sixties and never forgot this compelling tale of sheer suspense.It is rare indeed for a film with just two principal characters to sustain a film with sheer psychological terror. I'd say don't miss! (albeit, sadly, a little seen movie).

This delightful little low-budget film is one of Hammer's least-known efforts and also one of their best. The story is a reworking of "A Christmas Carol", as Peter Cushing's bank manager, a cold and austere man, and a petty tyrant to his staff, goes through a terrible experience which leads him to change his ways. Cushing is quite superb as the manager and Andre Morell almost as good as the urbane thief who controls events until the denouement. The plot twists and turns and the writing is first-class.