Fossa dei dannati

The plot for "Make Haste to Live" had promise...but ultimately the film made little sense and this annoyed me. It really could have been a good film.

Crystal Benson was married to a violent mobster, Steve (Stephen McNally). He slapped the snot out of her and she was naturally afraid of him. Ultimately, she escaped and the law thought that he'd killed her and disposed of the body. So, even without a corpse, he was convicted and spent 18 years in prison. Now, he's out...and looking to exact his revenge on her...now that he's found her.

While this sounds like a great plot, somehow the writing was not up to snuff. When Steve shows up in the small New Mexico town where she lives, she doesn't tell anyone who his is nor that he's threatening to kill her. Instead, inexplicably, he passes him off as her brother...and allows him to hang around her and her daughter....a young lady who doesn't know that her 'uncle' is actually her horrible father. Why doesn't Crystal tell EVERYONE he's out to kill her, he's a mobster AND why she ran?! This just doesn't make sense and the film became tedious...tedious because the solution to the problem seems simple yet the heroine seems inexplicably dim.

When her gangster husband is paroled, a woman fears for herself and her teenage daughter. Sounds like a good "out of the past" premise, but turns out to be a tepid thriller. There are brief hints of danger but they fizzle out, with Stephen McNally being a rather non-threatening presence and Dorothy McGuire uneven in her characterization. One minute she's haunted by nightmares, the next she seems quite comfortable with the situation. This thing just has no guts to it. What kind of movie teases the audience with a bottomless pit and then denies them the payoff? I've heard of Chekhov's Gun, but Chekhov's Hole? A nice score by Elmer Bernstein is wasted on this humdrum do-nothing picture.

I expected "Sleeping with the Enemy" but this wasn't it. The tension wasn't there. I just wasn't afraid for the good guys or scared of the bad guy. I had hoped that the bottomless pit shown in the opening scene would play a bigger part, but it didn't - and it would have made a grand finale! But the ending was very disappointing!

I didn't really understand what the ex-con ex-husband "had" on the main character and what he was trying to do to her and her daughter. I did like the small Western town setting with the Indian Ruins excavation site and the idea of her attempting to escape via the chartered plane, the suspense and down-to-the-wire excitement. And the villain was a menacing character.

Make Haste to Live is directed by William A. Seiter and adapted to screenplay by Warren B. Duff from the novel written by Gordon and Mildred Gordon. It stars Dorothy McGuire, Stephen McNally, Mary Murphy and Edgar Buchanan. Music is by Elmer Bernstein and cinematography by John L. Russell.

A gangster is sentenced to prison for killing his wife, but she isn't dead, she's alive and well and raising her daughter in New Mexico. It's now 18 years later and he's out of the big house; and he wants revenge!

Elmer Bernstein's superb musical score opens up the picture and Russell uses film noir filters to photograph the gripping opening sequences. It's a handsome beginning, the promise of a film noir gem is palpable, sadly the entire middle hour is plodding in pacing and ridiculous in plotting. There's some neat touches, McNally is permanently angry and sinister, which makes for good fun, McGuire works hard to maintain interest, Buchanan's gruff sheriff steps outside of the norm and the odd scene, such as that involving a fairground, have noirish leanings. The finale as well is of high quality, but patience is tested throughout and there's the over riding feeling that the cast, Bernstein, Russell and the audience deserve a far better script. 5/10