Kill Me Tomorrow

KILL ME TOMORROW is a low rent British thriller from a decade chock-full of such pictures. Many of them were, like this one, rather undistinguished, but still interesting to film fans thanks to their casting of famous and not-so famous faces alongside familiar production figures from the industry. Despite the nondescript storyline, KILL ME TOMORROW is worth a watch thanks to Hammer director Terence Fisher's assured handiwork.

The story is about a washed-up reporter, on the verge of losing his job, whose life falls apart still further when his kid falls seriously ill. Before long he falls in with a criminal gang and must strive to set things right in an increasingly complex and mean-spirited world. The writing isn't exactly stellar here, but it's fun to see American star Pat O'Brien (ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES) in a low rent British film and the supporting cast includes the familiar faces of Freddie Mills, Ronald Adam, and George Coulouris. Lois Maxwell's here too, looking lovely in the decade before she became famous as Miss Moneypenny. Tommy Steele contributes a musical number.

'B' picture mainly interesting to me as I saw Tommy Steele's name listed first and I have tickets to see him in 2016!! Rock on. However, back to the picture. Directed by Terence Fisher and starring American gangster actor Pat O'Brien, near the end of his illustrious supporting career to stars like James Cagney. Quite how Terence Fisher went from this dud to the wonderful The Curse of Frankenstein with Peter Cushing in a matter of months is beyond me. Anyway, O'Brien plays a booze riddled newspaper man who needs a £1000 to get his son cured of an eye tumour that will almost certainly kill him if it's not fixed pronto. He gets involved with gangsters led by George Coulouris and the whole thing becomes a bit convoluted but O'Brien still somehow ends up getting the girl, played by Lois Maxwell (Moneypenny from the early Bond films) who looks young enough to be his granddaughter. Ug! gross, particularly when he tries to kiss her in the final scene and Lois appears to turn her head away. Still, it was funny seeing Tommy Steele rocking away like an idiot which is how these young stars were presented in this type of picture back then. Another reason I love watching these old films is to see the character actors and actresses, most of them long dead. Boxer Freddie Mills, Al Mulock, Robert Brown, Richard Pasco, Ronald Adam, Wensley Pithey, all familiar faces to me. Always worth a look.

In Kill Me Tomorrow it was Pat O'Brien's turn to be an American actor who was past his prime as a leading man in the states to turn up in a British feature film. The idea was to give it greater marketability in the States. I well remember seeing a lot of these type of films as the bottom half of doublebills in my neighborhood movie theater.

O'Brien who had done a lot of noir type features in America fits comfortably with the genre in the UK. Even his Irish countenance is hardly out of place as so many Irish people from Ulster and from the Republic were living and working in Great Britain.

O'Brien is an alcoholic reporter working for a Fleet Street paper run by editor Ronald Adam. Adam's lost patience with O'Brien, a year before Pat's wife was killed in an automobile accident that he caused driving drunk. Now he's got a second piece of bad news, his son is ill with a tumor behind an eye and needs one quick operation from a specialist in Switzerland. A thousand pounds would cover it.

Ronald Adam has bigger fish to fry than O'Brien's problems. He's running an expose on some criminal rackets in London headed by George Coulouris. A stoolie after giving information to Adam is murdered and Coulouris and assorted hoods come calling. Adam winds up shot and then O'Brien arrives and Adam gives a dying declaration as to who did it.

But Pat's concern is the boy and he makes an unusual bargain with Coulouris. For a thousand pounds, he'll take the fall for him and confess to the murder.

I have to say that this was one of the more unusual plot twists in a film I've ever seen and for that reason it rates a cut above your average noir film. The production values were adequate, no more than that, the players gave a good account of themselves. Lois Maxwell soon to be Ms. Moneypenny in a few years is Adam's niece and even though she sees O'Brien with gun in hand leaving the premises and calls Scotland Yard, she still believes in him.

In fact the scheme is badly thought out, but it was thought out by a desperate man. A timeline and forensics shoot O'Brien's confession full of holes, but he insists on playing it his way as movie favorites do.

Two interesting people have small roles in Kill Me Tomorrow. One is former Light Heavyweight Champion Freddie Mills, a sports hero in the British Isles plays one of Coulouris's thugs. Mills met a tragic end a few years later, a suicide that some think was murder.

The other person was Great Britain's first rock and roll star Tommy Steele. He sings one of his early hits Rebel Rock in a coffee bar that Coulouris owns and is the headquarters for his enterprises. Tommy is not one of the crooks however. Having seen a more mature Steele in Half A Sixpence, Finian's Rainbow, and The Happiest Millionaire, it was interesting to see him in his rock and roll roots. I shouldn't actually say that because Steele as a performer would have been right at home in the British Music Hall Theater and has been for most of his career. He's got an infectious personality and style that has made me one of his biggest fans.

So while O'Brien is in the film for the American market, I've no doubt that Kill Me Tomorrow did well at the British box office with Tommy Steele performing. Kill Me Tomorrow is a good B noir thriller that could hold its own with America's product.

Pat O'Brien used to be a top reporter, but he has taken to the bottle since his wife's death. He quarrels with his editor in the newsroom and is fired. He then discovers that his son has a rare deadly disease that only a specialist in Switzerland can cure for a thousand pounds. He goes to the editor's house to make peace and get an advance, but hears gunshot and sees some racketeers leave. O'Brien breaks in and finds the editor dying. He picks up the gun when he hears a noise, but it's Lois Maxwell, the editor's niece and a fellow reporter. The next morning, O'Brien goes to the gangster, George Coulouris, and offers to confess to th murder, to give him and his gunsels time to flee the country for the money he needs.

O'Brien is too old for the part, despite the pep and professionalism he puts into it. The rest of the cast behaves in unlikely ways, especially Lois Maxwell as the dead man's niece who finds O'Brien standing with a gun over her uncle and yet comes to believe he didn't do it. I was also unconvinced by the way O'Brien took out two young hoods in a fight. To add to the issues, Claude Kingston, who plays his son, is one of those nasal, high-voiced drips with a teddy bear that riles me up. They needed someone ten or fifteen years younger.... or to have put O'Brien in a toupee.

"Crosbie" (Pat O'Brien) is a jaded old journalist who is involved in a car accident that robs him of his wife and seriously injures his son. Now facing a bill of £1,000 to send him to Switzerland for urgent treatment, he becomes desperate and turns to the dubious "Webber" (George Coulouris) and offers to take the rap for the recent death of his old boss if he will fund the surgery. What "Crosbie" hadn't figured on, though, was the police actually wanting to get to the bottom of the crime and "Insp. Lane" (Wensley Pithey) isn't convinced he has his man! The only solution for "Crosbie" now might be to team up with fellow reporter "Jill" (Lois Maxwell) and see if they can solve the crime themselves. It took me a while to recognise a very young Richard Pascoe as the doctor and Tommy Steele also features briefly, but otherwise this is all a rather formulaic drama that is probably fifteen minutes longer than it needs to be. It's reasonably paced and passes the time, but you won't recall it afterwards.