They Can't Hang Me | |
---|---|
Directed by | Val Guest |
Written by | Val Guest Val Valentine |
Based on | novel by Leonard Mosley |
Produced by | Roger Proudlock |
Starring | Terence Morgan Yolande Donlan André Morell Ursula Howells |
Cinematography | Stanley Pavey |
Edited by | Douglas Myers |
Music by | Stanley Black |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Independent Film Distributors |
Release date |
|
Running time | 75 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
They Can't Hang Me is a 1955 British drama film directed by Val Guest and starring Terence Morgan, Yolande Donlan and Anthony Oliver. [1] [2] It was based on a novel by Leonard Mosley. [3] It was shot at Shepperton Studios near London. The film's sets were designed by the art director Joseph Bato.
A senior civil servant, Pitt has been convicted of a murder and sentenced to death. Days before his execution, Pitt reveals that he has been passing on top secret information to an agent of a foreign power and offers to reveal the identity of his handler in exchange for a reprieve. With only five days before Pitt's execution, debonair Special Branch Inspector Ralph Brown takes on the task of identifying the spy before he flees the country.
The film uses Sidney Torch's music for The Black Museum for its title and some of its incidental music.
The starring role of Brown was an unusual part for Morgan, who was better known for playing villains.
Guest said "the Proudlock Brothers had bought the book, Roger Proudlock and his brother, and had got themselves into terrible trouble one way or another, financially or the director they had had pulled out of they’d fired [them], something had gone wrong, and I know they called me in a panic and said “Will you take this over?” So I looked at it and I didn’t like the script so they let me redo the script, and we took over at very short notice. It was not one of those that I had sat down and said I must make." [4]
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Spy thriller with an involved, though fairly coherent, plot, hinging on the necessity to save a desperate situation within a limited period of time. With the exception of Pitt, who is convincingly played by Andre Morell, the characters are essentially subordinate to the action. Tension is sustained, and Val Guest directs with slick confidence from a laconic script." [5]
Radio Times calls the film "a minor Cold War thriller", adding, "(Val) Guest puts a neat (if downbeat) spin on events," and concluding, "the back-up cast is as solid as a rock, with Guest's wife Yolande Donlan putting in an effective appearance". [6]
TV Guide describes it as "slightly more interesting than the normal run of British spy films, thanks to an unusually intelligent script." [7]
Cecil André Mesritz, known professionally as André Morell, was an English actor. He appeared frequently in theatre, film and on television from the 1930s to the 1970s. His best known screen roles were as Professor Bernard Quatermass in the BBC Television serial Quatermass and the Pit (1958–59), and as Doctor Watson in the Hammer Film Productions version of The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959).
Val Guest was an English film director and screenwriter. Beginning as a writer of comedy films, he is best known for his work for Hammer, for whom he directed 14 films, and for his science fiction films. He enjoyed a long career in the film industry from the early 1930s until the early 1980s.
London Town is a 1946 Technicolor musical film directed by Wesley Ruggles and starring Sid Field and Petula Clark, generally regarded as one of the biggest flops in the history of British cinema.
Terence Fisher was a British film director best known for his work for Hammer Films.
Basil Dignam was an English character actor.
Terence Ivor Grant Morgan was an English actor in theatre, cinema and television. He played many "villain" roles in British film but is probably best remembered for his starring role in the TV historical adventure series Sir Francis Drake.
Yolande Donlan was an American-born British-based actress who worked extensively in the United Kingdom.
Hell Is a City is a 1960 British crime thriller film starring Stanley Baker, based on the 1954 novel of the same title by Maurice Procter.
Cuthbert Mark Dignam was an English actor.
The Runaway Bus is a 1954 British comedy film produced, written and directed by Val Guest. It stars Frankie Howerd, Margaret Rutherford and Petula Clark and an ensemble cast of character actors in a story about a bus caught in fog while a gang of crooks tries to carry off a heist. The film was shot at Southall Studios in London with sets designed by the art director Wilfred Arnold. It was the film debut of Belinda Lee. The film is referenced in an episode of Frankie Howerd's 1970s radio series.
Miss Pilgrim's Progress is a 1949 black-and-white British comedy film by producer Nat Cohen and director Val Guest.
Assignment K is a 1968 British spy thriller film directed by Val Guest in Techniscope and starring Stephen Boyd, Camilla Sparv, Michael Redgrave, Leo McKern, Robert Hoffmann and Jeremy Kemp. The film was based on the 1964 novel Department K by Hartley Howard.
It's a Wonderful World is a 1956 British musical film directed by Val Guest and starring Terence Morgan, George Cole, Mylène Demongeot and Kathleen Harrison. It also features Dennis Lotis, a popular singer at the time.
Where the Spies Are is a 1965 British comedy adventure film directed by Val Guest and starring David Niven, Françoise Dorléac, John Le Mesurier, Cyril Cusack and Richard Marner. It was based on the 1964 James Leasor book Passport to Oblivion, which was also the working title of the film. MGM intended to make a Jason Love film series, but the idea was shelved.
Jigsaw is a 1962 British black and white crime film directed by Val Guest and starring Jack Warner and Ronald Lewis. The screenplay was by Guest based on the 1959 police procedural novel Sleep Long, My Love by Hillary Waugh, with the setting changed from the fictional small town of Stockford, Connecticut, to Brighton, Sussex, while retaining the names and basic natures of its two police protagonists and most of the other characters.
80,000 Suspects is a 1963 British drama film directed by Val Guest and starring Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, Yolande Donlan and Cyril Cusack. It is based on the 1957 novel Pillars of Midnight by Elleston Trevor. An outbreak of smallpox in Bath, England leads to a race to contain the virus.
Mister Drake's Duck is a 1951 British science-fiction comedy film directed by Val Guest and starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Yolande Donlan, Jon Pertwee, Wilfrid Hyde-White and Reginald Beckwith. The screenplay concerns a farmer who discovers that one of his ducks has started laying radioactive eggs.
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.
The Body Said No! is a 1950 British crime comedy film directed and written by Val Guest and starring Michael Rennie, Yolande Donlan, and Hy Hazell. It was shot at Walton Studios near London and distributed by Eros Films.
Expresso Bongo is a 1959 British drama musical film directed by Val Guest, shot in uncredited black & white Dyaliscope and starring Laurence Harvey, Cliff Richard, and Yolande Donlan. It is adapted from the stage musical of the same name, which was first produced on the stage at the Saville Theatre, London, on 23 April 1958.