Hell Is a City

Hell Is a City

By

  • Genre: Thriller, Crime
  • Release Date: 1960-04-10
  • Runtime: 98 minutes
  • : 6.641
  • Production Company: Hammer Film Productions
  • Production Country: United Kingdom
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6.641/10
6.641
From 32 Ratings

Description

Set in Manchester, heartland of England's industrial north, Don Starling escapes from jail becoming England's most wanted man. Ruthless villain Starling together with his cronies engineered a robbery that resulted in the violent death of a young girl. Detective Inspector Martineau has been assigned to hunt him down and bring him in. From seedy barrooms, through gambling dens the trail leads to an explosive climax high on the rooftops of the city.

Trailer

Reviews

  • CinemaSerf

    7
    By CinemaSerf
    For a second I thought that Joan Crawford was in this, then I realised that it was her long-lost cousin John who takes on the role of visiting American box-office draw for this gritty and quite well thought-out crime drama. You see, “Starling” has broken out of a prison in Manchester and local police inspector “Martineau” (Stanley Baker) is convinced that he will return to his old stomping grounds to settle old scores and to collect his share of the loot from the job that sent him down in the first place. Just to add to the complexities of his case, “Martineau” is having martial difficulties with his wife “Julia” (Maxine Audley) who is bored witless at home all the time whilst he is out playing cops and robbers, and there is also the murder of a young woman to look into too. Might they be connected? Well after some conversations with the slightly dodgy looking “Gus” (Donald Pleasence) for whom the victim worked, he becomes convinced that there is a connection and that this might be his lead to track down the elusive “Starling”, his gang and his stolen cash, too. I never found Baker to be the most engaging or versatile of actors, but he delivers quite well here as Val Guest ensures we hit the ground running and stay moving along quite intriguingly for ninety minutes. Crawford doesn’t actually feature that much until the end, but Pleasence does the sweaty-palm merchant really quite well meantime and there’s also an extra degree of frenzy provided by Lois Daine as the mute “Cecily” who finds herself embroiled in these shenanigans as things start to get desperate. The last ten minutes are all a bit set-piece but are excitingly filmed nonetheless as we take to the rooftops, and in some ways it did remind me of Jack Hawkins’s pretty decent “Gideon of Scotland Yard” (1958). It is a solid adventure worth a watch.

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