Five Minutes to Live (1961)

You won't be disappointed!

Sick Product of a Sick System

I'll tell you why so serious

Admirable film.

Reasonably taut thriller concerning a twisted killer (Cash) recruited by crook (Tayback) to hold the wife (Forrester) of a bank manager (Woods) hostage at their house while Tayback extorts $70k at the bank for the safe release of the wife - confirmed by a series of phone calls at five minute intervals. Complications emerge when the bank manager proves reluctant to pay the ransom, seeing an opportunity to become free of his wife and take up with his mistress (Mason).Co-star Forrester's script is functional, perhaps predictably giving her domestic characters more depth than usual, her performance benefiting from the extra attention in the dialogue. Cash isn't really an actor, though his offbeat expressions, timing and other attributes (serenading his victims with songs) manage to conjure something akin to a psychopath. Renowned tough-guy Tayback delivers his trademark mobster with all the expected motifs and the attractive Midge Ware has a brief role as Cash's ill-fated moll.As far as unconventional casting of singers in movies go, this is somewhere between Neil Sedaka's bizarre appearance in "The Playgirl Killer" and a traditional Elvis Presley vehicle. And while there's no arbitrary album previews (the singing is short and in context), there remain a few extraneous interactions to pad out the modest 74 minutes in what could have been a more compact 30-minute TV episode. Nevertheless, there's some genuinely palpable tension and decent performances from Forrester, Tayback, Mason and even Ron Howard as the precocious son in an unexpected, pivotal supporting role.

This movie starts out fair enough. We see Johnny Cash shooting down police officers, his face jiggling as his machine gun rattles. A cool song of his comes on called, appropriately enough, "Five minutes to live". A couple of scenes pass buy, introducing the characters, who seemed interesting, at first. Johnny Cabot is an ex-con looking for a way to make some quick cash. Nancy Wilson is a housewife too caught up in activities outside the home to spend time with her family. Donald Wilson is her bored bank president husband, who is seeing another woman on the side. And then there's "Ronnie" Howard, as their son. There's a couple of other characters, two cons who include Johnny in their scam in robbing the banker. If he doesn't give them the cash, his wife gets shot by Johnny Cash. So the first few minutes were promising. Them, when Johnny got the banker's wife into her home alone, I could tell this was going to be boring. After Johnny smashes some pottery and forces himself upon Nancy, there really wasn't much left for them to do except sit around playing guitar while one points a gun at the other. I'll admit a bit of suspense comes into play, as the two wait for the call from the banker that will save the woman's life,but this accumulates to nothing, as, rest assured, owl' Donald comes to the rescue just in time to save his wife. The problem with this movie was, it tried it's best to NOT be dark. It added bland humor at every possible moment, gave Ronnie some mildly funny jabs, and makes sure the ending is as happy as possible. Ronnie doesn't get shot, after all, bad guy dies, Donald ends his affair, and they all lived happily ever after. The movie is wrapped up with a little bow, as Nancy and Donald drive off with grins on their faces and stars in their eyes.This overshadows the somewhat dark performance by Johnny Cash, and the first 10 minutes or so, which has several people shot down by Johnny. In my opinion, it looks like they tried to make a film noir for Andy Griffith fans, and just didn't pull it off successfully. Maybe, if this film were remade by the Coen Brothers, we would have a good film. I can see William H. Macy as Donald Wilson right now... Note:I was calling the hero character Donald Wilson. The character's name is Ken Wilson, while the actor's name is Donald Woods. My mistake.

This does not make sense. Why would the plot say that these killers went door to door killing whoever answered the door. That is a down right lie. No where in the movie did this ever happen!!!! It had only one motive, one event, no maniacs going door to door. I just wanted to know why it is stated that a band of killers go from door to door killing the people who answer the door. There is no band, just two characters who are involved with this bank robbery. There is basically one hostage and one ransom plea of $70,000. If you are going to rob a bank, you would not use your real name, would you? The manager of the bank discovers a wanted poster with the robber's name and picture. Too obvious.

This is a tough little movie. It would work quite well without names. But let's face it: The leading man is the draw. Johnny Cash, in 1961, looking a little like Elvis, as a ruthless killer. A killer, to be sure, who sings the title song and whom we see playing guitar.Donald Woods is a dead ringer for the Darren character in "Bewitched." He is a complacent suburban dad. Cay Forrester is just right as his upwardly mobile blonde wife. Ron Howard is very cute as their son. (And Pamela Mason turns in a good acting job but is a little implausible as Woods's mistress.) Before he got the job cooking for Alice, Tayback was apparently a crook. A pretty mean one, at that. And here, he has hired Cash to hold banker Woods's wife hostage. (Before he takes the job, Cash has to dump his girlfriend, the greedy Doris, AKA Dory.) For an obviously low budget movie, this does its job neatly. And it holds up very well 45 years after it was released.