Hell Is a City

Hammer Films, best known for horror movies, stepped into film noir with Val Guest's "Hell Is a City". Stanley Baker plays a police inspector who suspects that an escaped criminal will head for Manchester to collect some loot. The dreary look of the city is as much a character as any of the actors. The post-war British film industry wasn't generally known for these sorts of movies, but they did an excellent job here. The chase at the end of the movie is impressive but I thought that the most effective scene was the whole sequence where the criminal hides in the woman's house.

I've liked every film noir that I've seen, but HIAC has to be one of the best. Baker's forceful performance as the hardened inspector is the epitome of acting. I recommend the movie.

The rest of the cast includes Donald Pleasance (Dr. Loomis in the "Halloween" franchise), Billie Whitelaw (the nanny in "The Omen") and Joseph Tomelty (the father of Sting's ex-wife).

I watched Hell is a City on DVD again the other day and was struck by how fresh and undated the story and acting still appears. It was a breakout Brit film for 1959/60- with its semi-documentary approach to police procedure,meshed with a tough on women approach and attempt to show relationships that don't have happy endings. On the DVD there is an alternate ending shown, which the director Val Guest claims to have no knowledge of at all! It's much weaker i think than Guest's own choice of ending. Stanley Baker is excellent; successfully showing all dimensions to an Inspector's working/personal life; Billie Whitelaw got nominated that year with the BAA for in the Newcomer category and deservedly so. All the support cast flesh out their characters' quirks very well. Actual location shooting (in this case-Manchester) was still quite unusual and there is a world of difference between this and a studio based crime thriller of maybe 10 years before.

I had been postponing my purchase of this and another Stanley Baker crime drama, Joseph Losey's THE CRIMINAL (1960; see below), ever since their DVD release back in 2002; ironically, what eventually pushed me into ordering them was the recent death of this film's director Val Guest - at the venerable age of 94! Well, all I can say is that I was foolish to have deprived myself of it for so long; this is surely one of the best British crime films ever and, being an atypical release for Hammer, is also one of their finest non-horror efforts!

During the excellent Audio Commentary included on the splendid Anchor Bay DVD edition, Guest admitted that one of his major influences (and not only on this particular film) had been Jules Dassin's innovative THE NAKED CITY (1948) and, curiously enough, one has to go back to Dassin's own NIGHT AND THE CITY (1950) to find an equally hard-hitting British noir!; then again, the film was ahead of its time since it would be years before a similarly truthful depiction of a policeman's domestic life would emerge in the U.S. (THE DETECTIVE and MADIGAN {both 1968}, for instance). The film is a veritable class act in every department: Guest's direction never puts a foot wrong and his screenplay (adapted from a novel by Maurice Proctor and deservedly nominated for a BAFTA award) is truly exceptional; Arthur Grant's chiaroscuro camera-work (mostly shot in real Manchester locations) is stunning; while Stanley Black's jazzy score lends the fast-paced if rather involved proceedings the requisite urgency.

Stanley Baker has one of his best leading roles as the tough cop who tries to make several ends meet - catch a dangerous criminal (American actor John Crawford, very effective) who's basically his alter ego, save his childless marriage with selfish Maxine Audley, and escape the daily temptation of a fling with the carnal (despite being middle-aged) but genuinely concerned barmaid Vanda Godsell (who also happens to be Crawford's old flame). Donald Pleasence has an important, scene-stealing supporting role as a bookmaker marked for robbery by Crawford - who had also been intimate with Pleasence's sluttish young wife (Billie Whitelaw who, despite this being her 12th feature film, was impressive enough to be up for the "Most Promising Newcomer" BAFTA award - and is even featured in a brief but startling nude scene which was promptly snipped for the U.S. version!). The rest of the cast is filled with familiar character actors, many of them members of Guest's own stock company.

Among the film's best scenes are the swift alleyway heist towards the beginning (which ends in murder), the wonderful "tossing school" (an illegal form of gambling) scene which takes place on the moors, several grueling interrogation scenes (with Baker often reduced to blackmailing his hard-as-nails 'customers') and the remarkably violent rooftop climax. By the way, I wasn't as displeased as Guest was with the alternate ending included as an extra (and which he had never seen before!) - inverting a couple of scenes and adding a brief hopeful coda (not filmed by Guest) with Baker and Audley - but I totally respect the director's decision to stick with his uncompromising original vision.

Out of Hammer Films, Hell is a City is directed by Val Guest, who also adapts the screenplay from Maurice Proctor's novel of the same name. It stars Stanley Baker, John Crawford, Billie Whitelaw, Maxine Audley, Donald Pleasence, Vanda Godsell, Joseph Tomelty and George A. Cooper. Music is by Stanley Black and cinematography in HammerScope is by Arthur Grant.

When violent criminal Don Starling (Crawford) escapes from prison, Manchester cop Inspector Harry Martineau (Baker) correctly assumes he is on his way back to the area to collect some hidden loot from a previous job. Sure enough a serious crime rocks the city and all roads lead to Starling, but what price will Martineau pay to nail a man whose mere name strikes fear into the locals?

Has some bastard been passing me snide money?

British crime drama at its best, absorbing as a suspense tale, clinically unflinching in its characterisations and directed with a deft hand by the multi talented Val Guest. Hell is a City is without question a very British movie, but in the same way that greats like Brighton Rock and They made Me A Fugitive were Britannia Rule Grimarannia, so it be here where Guest makes the most of Manchester's gloomy locales to pump bad blood into the edgy narrative. It's a Manchester of creaky terraced houses, working class bars, soiled streets and the unforgiving Moors. The latter of which a visual beauty to the eye, but home of misery both in fact and fiction.

A Starling in the Attic.

Tale unfolds as a sort of warts and all semi-documentary police procedural. Harry Martineau is the lead man, but this is no cliché addled copper, he is a tough bastard who is not adverse to using strong arm and dishonest tactics to get results. He's a hero, of sorts, but the happiness he craves outside of his work, at home, is moving further away from him. He's not alone, either, for many of the vivid characters on show here are either life's losers, illicit gamblers, unfaithful wives, lonely hearts, or cheaters and beaters, and that's before we get to Crawford's villain. Don Starling infects everyone with his evil stink, a robber, a rapist and a murderer, he may not look much physically in Crawford's shoes, but his name, voice and mere appearance has all but Martineau in a cold sweat.

If a man ain't got kids he's still fair game!

The script is devoid of pointless filler and no scene is wasted, there's an air of realism throughout. Sure there's a little leap of faith to be taken at times, but nothing that remotely could hurt the movie. The performances are from the better end of the scale, with Baker excelling as a stoic, but lonely man of the force, and Whitelaw and Godsell impressively force themselves up above the parapet to be rightly noticed in a movie predominantly beefed by machismo. Could Don Starling have been played by a better actor? Yes of course. Or just have been played by someone more menacing in appearance (like Baker in his villain roles for instance)? Again, yes of course. But the more you watch the more you will see that it's a frightening portrayal because it's very human, just like that given to Harry Martineau.

Some scenes shock and distress, others hold you and enthral, Hell is a City is one hell of a film and highly recommended to crime and noir fans. 9/10

No other film of this period gives such a clear indication of the attempt of British crime thrillers to become more exciting.

The introduction of John Crawford as the American bad guy and one time buddy of Stanley Baker is enthralling to watch and can seem slightly odd and out of place. The opening sequences are reminiscent of British TV show 'Z Cars' and were later spoofed in Naked Gun (though not as a direct result of this).

Donald Pleasance is very reliable as the Jewellry Shop owner who has much to reveal, while Baker himself plays another tough cop as he did in Blind Date (1959) and Violent Playground (1958) - the latter was also directed by Val Guest.

Look out for the climactic sequences - gripping stuff and still ever so British.