5 Steps to Danger

We first meet John Emmett (Sterling Hayden) when he's having his car towed. He says he is from LA and is going on vacation and to see relatives in Texas. We never find out what he does, or why he seems to have some money, or for that matter hear from or see anybody he knew separate from this plot. He is impulsive enough to just sell his broken but rather expensive car for cash - but he does dicker for price - and he is impulsive enough to accept Ann Nicholson's (Ruth Roman's) offer to share a ride with her as far as Santa Fe and share the driving although she is a total stranger.

From that point the suspense ratchets up as John is first confronted by a nurse who is working for Ann's psychiatrist who says Ann has just had a nervous breakdown and needs to be watched, and is stopped by cops who say Ann is wanted for murder, and then hears Ann say she actually has military plans she smuggled out of East Germany that she needs to deliver to some old family friend who is working for the government in Santa Fe. John is very trusting about all of this when it comes to Ann, and you wonder why he doesn't insist they go to the police right away but he doesn't.

From that point it is a swirl of people who could be spies or could be on the side of the US government, or maybe Ann really is crazy, and the tension and suspense never lets up.

Eddie Muller of TCM's Noir Alley said he'd like to think that Hayden's rather unexplained character is actually Johnny Clay from "The Killing", which he made right before this film, having escaped the cops and on his way to a new life. I found the film very suspenseful and engaging, even if you have to suspend your beliefs on how somebody would act in John Emmett's position.

When his car breaks down during a trip from Los Angeles to Texas, John Emmett (Sterling Hayden) meets another motorist, Ann Nicholson (Ruth Roman), who offers him a lift. He learns that she is running away from her physician, Dr. Simmons (Werner Klemperer), and the police, who want to question her about a murdered Central Intelligence Agent in Los Angeles.

Werner Klemperer? The CIA? Murder? Oh yes. While this is not one of those big budget thrillers or spy stories, it is not a bad one. You like independent film, do you not? Well, this is what it looked like in the 1950s, when you worked outside the studio system.

Entertaining chase drama with a cold war twist. Ruth Roman, one of the more under appreciated actresses of the fifties, gives an excellent portrait of a woman pursued. Intelligent and capable with an underlying edge of hysteria since she's never completely sure of what's happening. Made just as the Cold War was starting to really make an impact on public consciousness the film uses that to it's advantage.

The requisite romantic subplot is the weakest part of the story but part of that is due to having that stolid block of wood Sterling Hayden in the lead. A stronger actor would have made this even better.

A minor spy film but one that keeps the tension taut and is strengthened by the strong work of its leading lady.

Stranded in a small California town after experiencing car trouble, vacationing John Emmett is spared the tedium of bus travel when he has a chance meeting with Ann Nicholson-who offers him a lift if he'll agree to split the driving duties to Santa Fe. He soon learns that Ann is actually a patient recovering from a nervous breakdown, however, and a simple little road trip blossoms into a Cold War nightmare as the couple are ensnared in a web of mystery involving vital national security secrets!

Directed by Henry Kessler, Danger also features several familiar classic TV faces among its supporting cast: Werner Klemperer, a two-time Emmy winner as Colonel Klink on Hogan's Heroes, portrays a psychiatrist, and daytime drama doyenne Jeanne Cooper (The Young and the Restless) is Roman's concerned nurse. Stir in uncredited contributions from Sidney Clute (Cagney & Lacey) and Ken Curtis (Gunsmoke), and you have in 5 Steps to Danger a crackling good suspense thriller that will keep you guessing to the very end!

This is a clever directing job to make a film noir mystery into a good film.

Film noir often stumbled from being too Hollywood, with heroes and heroines automatically acting creepy just for the sake of acting creepy.

Here, we get the opposite. The best mysteries have the woman being the "woman of mystery", because that is part of being a woman, while being a man means having your mystery come out of your very straight forward approach.

Sterling Hayden often acted gruff for the sake of acting gruff. A modern day guy who thought there was always a camera on him.

But here he acts more like a believable man from the fifties, or any era before the twenty first century.

He becomes the "everyman" who is introduced to a mysterious world, which involves espionage.

The CIA and FBI are put in a likable light, which doesn't go over well with those who like the post 1965 cliché. Being 1957, this goes under the old cliché, which really wasn't around long enough to be a cliché. That's why such CIA and FBI characters are still fresh, and in the long run, more believable than the silly assassins of today.

What helps here is a great atmosphere. We get some road, and not too much of the cars. We have a few pit stops, and changing scenery, which makes this flow very well.