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| HELL IS A CITY (1960) |
Who?
Director: Val Guest
Producer: Michael Carreras
Screenplay: Val Guest
Cast: Stanley Baker, John Crawford, Donald Pleasence, Maxine Audley, Billie Whitelaw, Joseph Tomelty, Vanda Godsell, Geoffrey Frederick, Sarah Branch, George A. Cooper, Charles Houston, Joby Blanchard, Charles Morgan, Peter Madden
How?
After coming across ex-policeman Maurice Proctor's original novel Hell is a City, Michael Carreras decided it would make a prestige picture for Hammer and so passed it to Val Guest, who also saw its potential, and took on both to write a screenplay and direct the picture. Guest, at that time, was a regular Hammer director. He'd recently completed the critically acclaimed war drama Yesterday's Enemy (1959) for them and Carreras felt that he would be perfect for Hell is a City. Guest completed a screenplay and insisted that Stanley Baker, whom he'd worked with on Yesterday's Enemy, take the lead. The rest of the cast were comprised of excellent British actors such as Donald Pleasance and Billie Whitelaw, apart from US actor John Crawford, at the time finding lead roles in British films. It was thought Crawford might 'sell' the film more easily to a US audience. Unusually for Hammer the film was almost entirely shot on the streets of Manchester, the city council insisting the name be used and giving the shoot all the help it needed - even off-duty policemen as extras. The film was released to some of the best reviews Hammer ever received for a film, and Guest regarded it as the best film of his career.
What?
Detective Inspector Martineau (Baker), a Manchester policeman, discovers that Don Starling (Crawford), a jewel thief whom Martineau had put behind bars, has escaped and is out for revenge. Starling makes his way back to Manchester and gathers his old gang together to rob a bookmakers, owned by Gus Hawkins (Pleasance). Kidnapping Hawkins' secretary, who's carrying the money, Starling kills her when she screams, dumps her body on the moors, and the gang make off with money. Unknown to them, however, the money has been stained with an indelible green dye. Hawkins' wife is an ex-lover of Starling and he persuades her to hide him, but when he assaults her husband and flees when discovered she informs Martineau, and reveals that Starling had green-stained fingers. Raiding an illegal gambling racket, Martineau and his men uncover stained notes, which leads them to the rest of the gang members. Starling, meanwhile, has gone to an unwilling accomplice's storeroom to recover the jewels he hid before imprisonment. When discovered by the granddaughter Silver (Branch) he shoots her and flees across the rooftops of Manchester, with Martineau now in pursuit.
So?
Hell is a City was produced during a period when Hammer were experimenting in various genres, and producing some of their best work. Harkening back to the time in the 1950s when Hammer were producing British B-noirs for the US distributer Lippert, Hell is a tough, gritty crime drama that ranks among director Val Guest's best films. Eschewing the technicolour of their Gothic horrors Hell was shot in crisp b&w and filmed in an almost documentary style, adding a sense of bleak realism to the unfolding narrative. Adding to this is an almost 'kitchen sink drama' element to the film, a foretaste of the turn British cinema would take in the 1960s New Wave. For Hell is not only a police procedural but also very much a human story, as concerned with interpersonal relationships as it is with the drama of crime and retribution. Martineau is not just a faceless detective, but a man seen struggling with the dramas of his home life - he desperate for a child, his wife not but feeling a virtual prisoner in her home (for she can't be seen to work), needing some meaning to her life. He, so married to his job that he can't fulfill her needs, and tempted to stray.
Hell's cast are, on the whole, perfect in their roles. Stanley Baker, the world-weary and burdened detective dogged in his pursuit of his prey. John Crawford, the vicious thief and killer single-mindedly scrabbling for what he can get his hands on. Donald Pleasance, the twitchy, mousey but cunning bookmaker more concerned with his money than his staff. And his wife, Billie Whitelaw, married for money and torn in her loyalties. Rounding out fine central performances are Maxine Audley, Martineau's increasingly frantic wife, and Vanda Godsell, offering Martineau all he wishes - no strings attached. Hell dips in and out of the lives of each, their relationships, their interaction - one cares about what happens to these people, because they're rounded; no cardboard characters here. Of course, instrumental in the construction of this all-too-human story is Val Guest himself. A perfect screenplay with sharp dialogue, but only so much as is necessary for the story. A tale that meanders through the streets of the city and beyond, exposing an underbelly present wherever humanity congregates in numbers, Guest directs the story gently to its natural conclusion, never afraid to stop along the way and examine the human cost to its participants.
All this is in no way to suggest that Hell isn't exciting - it is a crime drama after all and on that score it more than delivers the goods. The robbery of, kidnapping and ultimate murder of the secretary; the raid on the gambling den in Manchester's industrial wasteland; the fight between Starling and the deaf-mute girl in a furniture strewn attic; and, of course, the iconic flight and fight across the city rooftops, where hunter and hunted finally meet and old scores are settled. Hell is a thriller, and doesn't forget it, the whole narrative winding the tension tighter until its explosive climactic release. And despite having shot an upbeat alternative ending, Guest chooses to leave an ambiguous future for Martineau, perfectly fitting the entire mood of the piece. And in the careful cultivation of that mood credit must be given to cinematographer Arthur Grant, his lighting, framing and movement aiding Hell's noirish narrative elements. For Hell can justly be seen as an example of late British film noir. We can only bemoan the fact, however much we love Hammer's horror and fantasy, that the company never really built on the artistic success of Hell, and others like it, as the sixties progressed. Nevertheless, Hell stands as a testament to the fact that Hammer could compete in the cinematic 'mainstream' as well as anyone.
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