Five Minutes to Love

Five Minutes to Love (1963)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Ben (Will Gregory), his wife and their child have their car breakdown so he walks into a junk yard to look for a part. Instead of finding the part he runs into its crazy and crooked owner Harry (Paul Leder) as well as his slut wife Poochie (Rue McClanahan).

FIVE MINUTES TO LOVE, which also went under the title THE ROTTEN APPLE, is pretty much a dead drama that just doesn't have much spark or energy to it. The film was obviously shot with a very low-budget but director John Hayes, who would go onto direct some popular drive-in era flicks like GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE, just doesn't have much to work with here.

The biggest problem is the actual screenplay that just doesn't go anywhere. We're introduced to the loudmouth Harry who is constantly screaming throughout the film. He screams at the police, He screams at his wife. He screams at anyone he is talking to. I get the point that he's supposed to be crazy but all of this screaming just makes you turn your hearing off.

The film has the typical type of performances that you'd expect from a film like this. They aren't awful. They're not great. They're just something you see in a B movie like this. Fans of McClanahan will probably get a kick out of seeing her play a slut, which is basically a younger version of the type of character she played in The Golden Girls.

Joe Bob Briggs mentioned how great Rue McLanahan (Golden Girls) looked in this early-'60s exploiter. Don't believe it! There's nothing much to see, no nudity or anything else that would make an exploiter interesting. The storyline and acting are horrible, as one might expect, and it's very, very boring. If you're curious about how the young Rue McLanahan looked, check out HOLLYWOOD AFTER DARK instead. It's no cinema classic, either, but at least it delivers.