Hell Is a City | |
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Directed by | Val Guest |
Screenplay by | Val Guest |
Based on | Hell Is a City by Maurice Procter |
Produced by | Michael Carreras |
Starring | Stanley Baker John Crawford Donald Pleasence |
Cinematography | Arthur Grant |
Edited by | John Dunsford James Needs |
Music by | Stanley Black |
Color process | Black and white |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | Warner-Pathé Distributors |
Release dates |
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Running time | 96 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Budget | £115,000 |
Hell Is a City is a 1960 British crime thriller film directed by Val Guest and starring Stanley Baker, John Crawford and Donald Pleasence. It was written by Guest based on the 1954 novel of the same title by Maurice Procter, [1] and made by British studio Hammer Film Productions on location in Manchester. It was partly inspired by the British New Wave films and resembles American film noir. [2]
Committed but seen-it-all police inspector Harry Martineau rightly guesses that after a violent jailbreak a local criminal will head home to Manchester to pick up the spoils from his last job. Martineau is soon investigating a murder during a street robbery which seems to lead back to the same villain. Concentrating on the case and using his local contacts to try to track the gang down, he is aware he is not keeping his own personal life together as well as he might.
In a 1988 interview, Val Guest said: "Mike Carreras fell for the book, he liked it very much and gave to me to read, then he bought the rights from ABP [ Associated British Picture Corporation] ‘cos they were never going to make it, and we made it on location, and the whole thing was this Detective Inspecor Martineau … and this very human detective, tough, rough, but human with his own problems at home, with a wife who nagged, falling for a barmaid who was part of his investigation, it was a real slice of life, putting the police down as human beings." [3]
In contemporary reviews,Variety said "Val Guest’s taut screenplay, allied to his own deft direction, has resulted in a notable film in which the characters are all vividly alive, the action constantly gripping and the background of a provincial city put over with authenticity." [4]
Kine Weekly wrote: "The tale is fiction, but its types, expertly portrayed by a hand-picked cast – Stanley Baker adds another commanding portrait to his already long and impressive gallery as the hero – thoroughly convince, while apt asides, embracing sentiment and sex, subtly punctuate the rough stuff. ... The picture sharply cross-sections north country life and effectively employs warm sentiment and shrewd comedy touches to underline violent action, culminating in the villain's spectacular apprehension.." [5]
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Any British crime picture that forswears the sleazy bars and pseudo-luxury flats of London and the sinister country houses of the Home Counties deserves some welcome, even if the road to the industrial North is by now well and diversely pioneered. This film may not re-create the atmosphere of Manchester any more effectively than Violent Playground (1958) did that of Liverpool, but in the coin-tossing game on the dingy moor outside a little factory town it has a most striking outdoor sequence, thanks in great measure to Arthur Grant's stark photography and the choice of extras who really look their parts. ... Elsewhere, Val Guest's script and direction maintain a hectic pace, with frequent scene changes, mobility of camera and performers, and much rapid, loud, intense dialogue, all making most recent American gangster films seem weakly constructed and slow-moving. There is a perpetual feeling of barely suppressed savagery, submerged in the excitement and rush of the early scenes, but undisguised later with a near-rape and the hunting and shooting of the deaf-mute blonde, Silver – almost the only character who is neither depraved nor at least coarsened." [6]
Writing in The Guardian , Philip French said: "Guest's dialogue is abrasive and unsentimental, the editing (to a modern jazz score) rapid without being self-consciously smart, the accents mostly convincing." [7]
Leslie Halliwell called the film: "Lively semi-documentary, cameo-filled cop thriller filmed on location." [8]
In British Sound Films David Quinlan writes: "With its tough approach and patchwork of small scenes, this exciting thriller was the forerunner of much British TV cops-and-robbers to follow." [9]
Empire said: "[Baker and Pleasance] turn in fierce performances and Guest's direction gives the movie a splendidly wrought realism, capturing a nasty underworld Britain rarely envisioned since." [10]
Time Out said: "A persuasively sweaty crime thriller set in Manchester ... The atmosphere is persuasively seedy and downbeat, and there's a striking performance by Billie Whitelaw". [11]
The Manchester Evening News said " With its panoply of bantering barmaids, silver-tongued felons and lush wives, a clipped camera style and hard-boiled sensibilities (which seem a little bit Z-Cars now), Hell Is A City is probably a film which deserves to have featured more prominently in British movie memory." [12]
Hell Drivers is a 1957 British film noir crime drama film directed by Cy Endfield and starring Stanley Baker, Herbert Lom, Peggy Cummins and Patrick McGoohan. It was written by Endfield and John Kruse, and produced by the Rank Organisation and Aqua Film Productions. A recently released convict takes a driver's job at a haulage company and encounters violence and corruption.
The Good Die Young is a 1954 British crime film directed by Lewis Gilbert and starring Laurence Harvey, Gloria Grahame, Joan Collins, Stanley Baker, Richard Basehart and John Ireland. It was made by Remus Films from a screenplay based on the 1953 novel of the same name by Richard Macaulay. It tells the story of four men in London with no criminal past whose marriages and finances are collapsing and, meeting in a pub, are tempted to redeem their situations by a robbery.
Up the Creek is a 1958 British comedy film written and directed by Val Guest and starring David Tomlinson, Peter Sellers, Wilfrid Hyde-White, David Lodge and Lionel Jeffries.
The Blue Parrot is a low budget 1953 British "B" crime film directed by John Harlow and starring Dermot Walsh, Jacqueline Hill, Ballard Berkeley, Richard Pearson, and John Le Mesurier. The film was produced by Stanley Haynes for Act Films Ltd. The screenplay is by Alan MacKinnon from a story by British crime reporter Percy Hoskins.
The Girl in the Picture is a 1957 British second feature crime film directed by Don Chaffey and starring Donald Houston and Patrick Holt. It was written by Paul Ryder.
Violent Playground is a black and white 1958 British film directed by Basil Dearden and starring Stanley Baker, Peter Cushing, and David McCallum. The film, which deals with the genre of juvenile delinquent, has an explicit social agenda. It owes much to U.S. films of a similar genre.
Dancing with Crime is a 1947 British film noir film directed by John Paddy Carstairs, starring Richard Attenborough, Barry K. Barnes and Sheila Sim. A man hunts down the killer of his lifelong friend.
Saloon Bar is a 1940 British comedy thriller film directed by Walter Forde and starring Gordon Harker, Elizabeth Allan and Mervyn Johns. It was made by Ealing Studios and its style has led to comparisons with the later Ealing Comedies, unlike other wartime Ealing films which are different in tone. It is based on the 1939 play of the same name by Frank Harvey in which Harker had also starred. An amateur detective tries to clear an innocent man of a crime before the date of his execution.
The Steel Key is a 1953 British second feature thriller film directed by Robert S. Baker and starring Terence Morgan, Joan Rice and Raymond Lovell.
Murder at 3 a.m. is a 1953 British crime film second feature directed by Francis Searle and starring Dennis Price, Peggy Evans and Rex Garner. A Scotland Yard detective investigates a series of attacks on women.
The Gang's All Here is a 1939 British black-and-white comedy-mystery, directed by Thornton Freeland and starring Jack Buchanan and Googie Withers. It was produced by Associated British Picture Corporation and released in the U.S. in 1943 as The Amazing Mr. Forrest.
The Wedding of Lilli Marlene is a 1953 British drama film directed by Arthur Crabtree and starring Lisa Daniely, Hugh McDermott and Sid James. It was a sequel to the 1950 film Lilli Marlene, also directed by Crabtree.
Three Steps to the Gallows is a 1953 British second feature crime film directed by John Gilling and starring Scott Brady, Mary Castle and Gabrielle Brune. It was released in the US by Lippert Pictures as White Fire.
Child in the House is a 1956 British drama film directed by Cy Endfield and starring Phyllis Calvert, Eric Portman and Stanley Baker. It is based on the novel A Child in the House by Janet McNeill. A girl struggles to cope with her uncaring relatives.
Kill Her Gently is a 1957 British second feature thriller film directed by Charles Saunders and starring Griffith Jones, Maureen Connell and Marc Lawrence. It was written by Paul Erickson.
Blackout is a 1950 British crime drama film directed by Robert S. Baker and starring Maxwell Reed and Dinah Sheridan. It was made as a supporting feature.
Passport to Treason is a 1956 British second feature mystery thriller directed by Robert S. Baker and starring Rod Cameron, Lois Maxwell, and Clifford Evans. It was written by Kenneth R. Hayles and Norman Hudis, based on the Manning O'Brine novel of the same name.
Mrs. Pym of Scotland Yard is a 1939 British comedy-drama film directed by Fred Elles starring Mary Clare in her only title role and Nigel Patrick in his film debut. It is based on the Mrs Pym novels by Nigel Morland, and written by Morland, who re-used the title for a 1946 book.
Profile is a 1954 British second feature thriller film directed by Francis Searle and starring John Bentley, Kathleen Byron and Thea Gregory. A murder mystery set in a magazine publishers.
Harry Martineau is a fictional British police detective created by Maurice Procter. He is a Chief Inspector in the industrial Northern city of Granchester, which was inspired by Manchester. Procter, himself a former police officer, wrote fourteen novels in the series published between 1954 and 1968. Martineau has been described as a transitional figure in detective fiction standing between the Golden Age detectives such as Ngaio Marsh's Roderick Alleyn and Josephine Tey's Inspector Grant and the newer fashion for police procedurals.