Three Sundays to Live

"Three Sundays to Live" is a 1957 low-budget film starring Kieron Moore, Jane Griffiths, and Sandra Dorne.

Kieron plays Frank Martin, a band leader who is asked by a young woman (Dorne) to bring her to see the big boss. She says her name is Ruth Chapman, she once worked for the owner, and is in need of a job. When they arrive at the office, someone kills the owner and knocks out Martin. When he comes to, he runs into the police, who arrest him for the murder. He is found guilty and sentenced to be executed.

His girlfriend (Griffiths) is determined to help him find Ruth Chapman, who supposedly died in the U.S. some years earlier. Finally, with time growing short, Frank escapes to try to solve the situation himself.

Derivative film without a lot going for it, except that Griffiths and Dorne are both beautiful. Moore isn't impressive. Very ordinary film.

Kieron Moore is a bandleader at a club. His girlfriend is rich, beautiful Jane Griffiths. Life is good, until Sandra Dorne walks into the club when he's alone and asks him to help her brace the club owner for a job -- she'd worked for him earlier. He walks into the boss's office, only to discover him shot. Moore tries to go to see what's going on. A man hiding out of sight slugs him, another puts the murder weapon in his hand. When he wakes and tries to get help, the police are already there. They arrest him. They don't believe his story. Miss Dorne moved to America and died in a bus crash years earlier. All too soon, he's in prison, waiting to be hanged

It's a nice script by Brian Clemens, directed by Ernest Morris, both early in their careers -- Clemens' third script, Morris' second feature -- and inclined to be ambitious. The actors are likewise anxious to do well and give good performances, although Miss Griffiths doesn't have as much to do as she might. Balance that with the Danziger brothers producing as cheaply as they could get away with, and you have a decent little second feature, even if the wrap-up is a little brusque and well-mannered. I don't imagine the audience noted. They were probably anxious to see the main feature, or hit the water closets before heading home.

Big band leader, Frank (that's the leader of a big band. Kieron Moore, who plays Frank, isn't especially big, although he is Irish – you may recognise him from 60s TV such as Randall and Hopkirk and Department S) while working after hours in the Flamingo nightclub, takes a mysterious blonde, who calls herself Ruth, to see his boss, Nick Barnes. Frank opens the door to Barnes's office just as Barnes is being blasted. With a gun. This being a 1950s b film, Ruth, his alibi, disappears. According to the police she died in a railway crash seven years ago. In the subsequent trial Frank is convicted of murder and faces the high jump in three week's time – with only his Judy, Judy (Jane Griffiths) trying to clear his name.

Three Sundays to Live is a Danziger production, which accounts for it being a bit, well, rubbish. I don't believe any of their films were ever shown on TV – I could be wrong – not even in the Spartan days of three channel Britain. Film stock, while on location, is drastically under developed while, on set, actor's voices fail to attend the viewer's ear. The acting isn't that convincing either – Kieron Moore's accent careens between hard boiled American and Rada. Plot lines are risible, sometimes unintentionally – murdered nightclub proprietor Barnes had business interests on the continent, run by Al Murray (not that one) – and the police are scarily blinkered in their convictions – and sometimes just scary – "I can have you broken for this."

All in all Three Sundays To Live offers little, even for enthusiasts of drab British b films of the era.