Kill Her Gently

"Kill her gently" is another brilliant example of B toughness in british 1950's cinema. And I do not know any other movie by the director Charles Saunders who directs energically this psycho hostage story in the main setting of a house. Marc Lawrence is a powerful threatening badman, Griffith Jones is the husband taken in hostage with his beautiful wife Maureen Connell threatened by Marc Lawrence but always resisting (what a performance), and Marianne Brauns is another Marc Lawrence's victim. And virtuoso shootings in the main violent scenes. Don't grip on the few mistakes in the story.

Kill Her Gently is a sub Hitchcockian British B thriller starring American Marc Lawrence who had escaped to Europe after being blacklisted for his political views in the 1950s.

Two convicts break out of prison. Connors is an American and Svenson is a Swede. While on the run they are picked up by a motorist, Martin who realises who they are but helps them pass a police road block. Martin makes the a proposition to the fugitive. He will help them leave the country if in return they will kill his wife.

It looks like Martin is more deranged than the convicts who has suffered a mental breakdown for which his wife had him sectioned and who also thinks she might be having an affair.

Most of the film is set in the couple's home as Martin initially comes across as a victim with his wife. However the convicts become reluctant carrying out his task especially Svenson.

This is a tight, short thriller but with a very rushed ending. Marc Lawrence impresses as a tough guy with a looming conscious. Griffith Jones is also memorable as the conniving, cunning and desperate husband who wants to punish his wife for having him incarcerated.

This is one of those tight, moody British crime thrillers of the 50s, one which just about lives up to its great title. Despite being set in a rural/suburban setting, the proceedings are imbued with the post-war brutality and seediness common to the genre, not to mention plenty of misogyny and xenophobia.

The plot keeps moving and the atmospheric and psychological details are piled up at an equal pace, making this compelling viewing. Perhaps most telling is that the cultivated British middle class citizen proves far nastier than the "greasy" foreign criminals. The ending is a bit abrupt (possibly due to censorship or a cut TV print), but otherwise it plays all the angles perfectly. Marc Lawrence seems to have had a knack for finding neat little productions like this in which to participate.

If you like this one, try "Man in the Back Seat", too.

"Martin" (Griffith Jones) is driving home one evening when he picks up two hikers. Once in his car, he realises that they are those wanted by police having just escaped from prison. They don't know he knows, and so are rather taken aback by his proposal. He will give them money and a path out of the country - if they agree to murder his wife "Kay" (Maureen Connell). The more brutal of the two - "Connors" (Marc Lawrence) readily agrees and his sidekick "Sven" (George Mikell) is soon on board as they arrive at his home where he concocts a plan to get their money whilst they do the deed. Of course, things don't quite go to plan - the police are looking for the escapees and his wife isn't quite the shrinking violet type. Is she toast or will they manage to get away with it? The premiss is quite interesting by virtue of the supposed spontaneity of the plan. Sadly, though, once they are all housebound the plot starts to unravel and there is just a bit too much hysteria as "Connors" decides killing is not the only crime he wants to get up to. The last ten minutes do have a certain vindication to them, but by then the thing had largely run out of steam. Though I did quite enjoy this, the narrative could have been better focussed around a cast of competent B-listers who do their jobs adequately in a feature that had more potential.

Thus was it described by Chibnall & McFarlane in 'The British 'B' Film' in 2009. The evidently tiny budget actually enhances this raw little hostage drama which begins like Edgar Ulmer's 'Detour' (1945) with Griffith Jones giving a lift to two desperadoes. Not surprisingly the film was released only after delays and cuts.

One of the hitch-hikers is played by one of Hollywood's meanest-looking heavies ever, the ferrity-faced Marc Lawrence; who back in America himself later directed the similar 'Nightmare in the Sun'.