Hell Is a City (1960)

Simply A Masterpiece

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

image1.jpegHELL IS A CITY, 1959, Director Val GuestVIEWED in London at a special Hammer classics reissue press screening, c. 1996. Inspector Harry Martineau (Stanley Baker), a hard-boiled detective stationed in Manchester England, suspects that a ruthless escaped criminal Don Starling (John Crawford) will come back to town to retrieve a cache of stolen jewels he hid there before his conviction. Martineau has problems at home where he and his wife Julia (Maxine Audley) constantly bicker about his role as a cop which monopolizes his time, and their childless marriage. Starling arrives in town as expected and immediately forms a gang to rob a bookmaker Gus Hawkins (Donald Pleasance), to raise enough cash for a clean getaway but what they grab turns out to be a large amount of money in bank marked bills to prevent their theft. Starling kills a young girl during the robbery and dumps the body by the side of the road out in the country but is spotted by Martineau who is hot on his trail following down one hot lead after another. On the run with Martineau in hot pursuit, now wanted for murder, Starling takes refuge at one point hiding in the attic of the bookmaker he robbed (Pleasance) and threatening his philandering wife Chloe (Billie Whitelaw) he once had an affair with. When discovered by Pleasance Starling manages to knock him out with injuries that put him in the hospital. Martineau, following up another hunch, squeezes more information from Hawkins wife Chloe. At a large outdoor gambling game, where some of the tainted money changes hands, Martineau catches up with the accomplices in the robbery and is now just one step behind his quarry. Starling recovers the cache of stolen jewels from a crooked fence (Furnisher Steele) but has to hide in the storeroom upstairs when the police, tipped off, arrive on the scene. Here, in an extremely harrowing sequence which becomes the unforgettable centerpiece of the film, he holds the beautiful blonde daughter of the fence, Silver Steele, (Sarah Branch) hostage, but she is unable to scream for help because she is deaf and dumb. a( What a twist!) ~ As he stalks her around the attic room piled high with furniture, in desperation she manages to knock out a window which draws the attention of the neighborhood. Martineau breaks in and pursues the vicious killer in a final showdown up on the rooftops above Manchester -- the most suspenseful Mother of all rooftop chases ever filmed. At the end Martineau chooses his job over his marriage. In a wistful coda at his favorite saloon he runs into Lucky Lusk (Vanda Godsell) the attractive barmaid he has been flirting with all along, and she offers herself to him full on, but he turns her open ended offer down on the grounds that he is still married. "Well, she says, in wry resignation, "If you ever have a kid name it for me". The Martineau hard boiled cop figure who doesn't mind bending the law to get his man is a predecessor of Dirty Harry by some twenty years and the mean streets of the city of Manchester are portrayed like another main character hovering over the picture. A major city really seen in British films sits for a remarkable portrait. I had seen this movie years ago when it first came out but quickly disappeared. All I remembered was the white knuckle scene in the attic with the vicious killer relentlessly stalking the pathetically defenseless deaf and dumb girl -- every bit as harrowing and suspenseful now as it was back then. BRAVURA filmmaking beginning to end by Val Guest in a classic B/w mold. Unforgettable. The perfect thriller. Stanley Baker, usually seen in meaty supporting roles, never quite became a top star, but was nevertheless one of the best and most businesslike British actors of his time.

Cunning, lethal, ruthless criminal Don Starling (excellently played by John Crawford) escapes from jail and returns to Manchester to perform a robbery. Rugged, no-nonsense, hot-tempered Inspector Harry Martineau (a superbly hard-boiled performance by Stanley Baker) is bound and determined to nab Starling. Things get sticky when Starling kills a 19-year-old girl during the heist and the manhunt becomes a much more deadly pursuit. Writer/director Val Guest keeps the pace rattling along at a brisk clip, maintains an uncompromisingly tough-edged tone throughout, and does an expert job of creating a seedy urban atmosphere. Stanley Black's rousing, swinging jazz score really hits the spot. Arthur Grant's crisp, handsome, agile black-and-white cinematography likewise impresses. The occasional outbursts of raw violence are shockingly brutal. The climactic rooftop chase between Starling and Martineau is genuinely tense and exciting. Baker and Crawford excel in the leads; they receive fine support from Donald Pleasence as irritable book maker Gus Hawkins, Maxine Audley as Martineau's fed-up, neglected, long-suffering wife Julia, Billie Whitelaw as Gus' trampy wife Chloe (she's also Starling's frightened former old flame), Vanda Godsell as sassy bar maid Lucretia "Lucky" Luske, Joseph Tomelty as feisty old duffer Furnisher Steele, and George A. Cooper as petty gambler Doug Savage. A highly atypical Hammer Studios production, this rough and hard-hitting crime thriller winner makes for completely absorbing and satisfying viewing.

I had been postponing my purchase of this and another Stanley Baker crime drama, Joseph Losey's THE CRIMINAL (1960; see below), ever since their DVD release back in 2002; ironically, what eventually pushed me into ordering them was the recent death of this film's director Val Guest - at the venerable age of 94! Well, all I can say is that I was foolish to have deprived myself of it for so long; this is surely one of the best British crime films ever and, being an atypical release for Hammer, is also one of their finest non-horror efforts! During the excellent Audio Commentary included on the splendid Anchor Bay DVD edition, Guest admitted that one of his major influences (and not only on this particular film) had been Jules Dassin's innovative THE NAKED CITY (1948) and, curiously enough, one has to go back to Dassin's own NIGHT AND THE CITY (1950) to find an equally hard-hitting British noir!; then again, the film was ahead of its time since it would be years before a similarly truthful depiction of a policeman's domestic life would emerge in the U.S. (THE DETECTIVE and MADIGAN {both 1968}, for instance). The film is a veritable class act in every department: Guest's direction never puts a foot wrong and his screenplay (adapted from a novel by Maurice Proctor and deservedly nominated for a BAFTA award) is truly exceptional; Arthur Grant's chiaroscuro camera-work (mostly shot in real Manchester locations) is stunning; while Stanley Black's jazzy score lends the fast-paced if rather involved proceedings the requisite urgency.Stanley Baker has one of his best leading roles as the tough cop who tries to make several ends meet - catch a dangerous criminal (American actor John Crawford, very effective) who's basically his alter ego, save his childless marriage with selfish Maxine Audley, and escape the daily temptation of a fling with the carnal (despite being middle-aged) but genuinely concerned barmaid Vanda Godsell (who also happens to be Crawford's old flame). Donald Pleasence has an important, scene-stealing supporting role as a bookmaker marked for robbery by Crawford - who had also been intimate with Pleasence's sluttish young wife (Billie Whitelaw who, despite this being her 12th feature film, was impressive enough to be up for the "Most Promising Newcomer" BAFTA award - and is even featured in a brief but startling nude scene which was promptly snipped for the U.S. version!). The rest of the cast is filled with familiar character actors, many of them members of Guest's own stock company.Among the film's best scenes are the swift alleyway heist towards the beginning (which ends in murder), the wonderful "tossing school" (an illegal form of gambling) scene which takes place on the moors, several grueling interrogation scenes (with Baker often reduced to blackmailing his hard-as-nails 'customers') and the remarkably violent rooftop climax. By the way, I wasn't as displeased as Guest was with the alternate ending included as an extra (and which he had never seen before!) - inverting a couple of scenes and adding a brief hopeful coda (not filmed by Guest) with Baker and Audley - but I totally respect the director's decision to stick with his uncompromising original vision.

Inspector Martineau knows in his gut that a recently escaped criminal will come back to the scene of the crime to recover the goods that he's stolen. It's up to him to piece together the new assignment that he's given and trace it back to the guilty party. Stanley Baker shines as Martineau (one year later Baker would be in one of the greatest war films ever with "The Guns of Navarone") in this taunt, gripping little crime thriller by Val Guest. All the minor characters are equally good. This is one film that I wouldn't mind revisiting. Another great film to come out of the sadly defunct Hammer studios.My Grade:B+ DVD Extras: Commentary by Val Guest and Journalist Ted Newsom; Alternate Ending; Talent Bios for Val Guest and Stanley Baker; and Theatrical Trailer Eye Candy:a blink and you'll miss it Billy Whitelaw topless scene