Hell Is a City (1960)

I don't play cards. I don't even touch coins.

Out of Hammer Films, Hell is a City is directed by Val Guest, who also adapts the screenplay from Maurice Proctor's novel of the same name. It stars Stanley Baker, John Crawford, Billie Whitelaw, Maxine Audley, Donald Pleasence, Vanda Godsell, Joseph Tomelty and George A. Cooper. Music is by Stanley Black and cinematography in HammerScope is by Arthur Grant.

When violent criminal Don Starling (Crawford) escapes from prison, Manchester cop Inspector Harry Martineau (Baker) correctly assumes he is on his way back to the area to collect some hidden loot from a previous job. Sure enough a serious crime rocks the city and all roads lead to Starling, but what price will Martineau pay to nail a man whose mere name strikes fear into the locals?

Has some bastard been passing me snide money?

British crime drama at its best, absorbing as a suspense tale, clinically unflinching in its characterisations and directed with a deft hand by the multi talented Val Guest. "Hell is a City" is without question a very British movie, but in the same way that greats like "Brighton Rock" and "They made Me A Fugitive" are "Britannia Rule Grimarannia", so it be here where Guest makes the most of Manchester's gloomy locales to pump bad blood into the edgy narrative. It's a Manchester of creaky terraced houses, working class bars, soiled streets and the unforgiving Moors. The latter of which a visual beauty to the eye, but home of misery both in fact and fiction.

A Starling in the Attic.

Tale unfolds as a sort of warts and all semi-documentary police procedural. Harry Martineau is the lead man, but this is no cliché addled copper, he is a tough bastard who is not adverse to using strong arm and dishonest tactics to get results. He's a hero, of sorts, but the happiness he craves outside of his work, at home, is moving further away from him. He's not alone, either, for many of the vivid characters on show here are either life's losers, illicit gamblers, unfaithful wives, lonely hearts, or cheaters and beaters, and that's before we get to Crawford's villain. Don Starling infects everyone with his evil stink, a robber, a rapist and a murderer, he may not look much physically in Crawford's shoes, but his name, voice and mere appearance has all but Martineau in a cold sweat.

If a man ain't got kids he's still fair game!

The script is devoid of pointless filler and no scene is wasted, there's an air of realism throughout. Sure there's a little leap of faith to be taken at times, but nothing that remotely could hurt the movie. The performances are from the better end of the scale, with Baker excelling as a stoic but lonely man of the force, and Whitelaw and Godsell impressively force themselves up above the parapet to be rightly noticed in a movie predominantly beefed by machismo. Could Don Starling have been played by a better actor? Yes of course. Or just have been played by someone more menacing in appearance (like Baker in his villain roles for instance)? Again, yes of course. But the more you watch the more you will see that it's a frightening portrayal because it's very human, just like that given to Harry Martineau.

Some scenes shock and distress, others hold you and enthral, "Hell is a City" is one hell of a film and highly recommended to crime and noir fans. 9/10

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.