Five Minutes To Live (DVD)

...to kill his wife in five minutes if he doesn't fork over the money to Dorella.

So, Johnny cold-bloodedly murders his girlfriend (charming, again) and goes off, guitar case in hand, to meet up with Dorella. Johnny's ruse for gaining access to the bank manager's house is to pretend to be a door-to-door salesman offering guitar lessons, hence why he has brought the guitar. Dorella drives Johnny to the house and they park down the road to ...
...leaves for school. When they get the all-clear, Johnny goes to the house and gives Mrs Wilson a charming-sounding sales pitch on the doorstep. Using the old chestnut of asking her for a drink of water, he follows her in and pulls a gun on her. Much, much unpleasantness ensues over the next hour.

This is an engrossing film with a good story, albeit looking low-budget and being a bit short at an hour and fourteen minutes, plus the ending ... more

Starring:

Johnny Cash as Johnny Cabot
Donald Woods as Ken Wilson
Cay Forrester as Nancy Wilson
Vic Tayback as Fred Dorella
Ron Howard as Bobby (as Ronnie Howard)

This 1961 movie, originally titled 'Door-To-Door Maniac' (GREAT title, wish they’d kept that one!) stars singer Johnny Cash, of all people, as a seriously deranged and intensely dislikeable homicidal psycho. His bravura performance is uncannily convincing and played with such gusto that it really is rather disturbing! Despite its silly and cheesy original title, this is a good thriller with a gripping story which is as much worth watching just for the story as it is for the novelty value of Johnny’s performance.

The film opens as crook Fred Dorella, in a dark and Noir-ish ‘third-degree’-type scene with stark lighting, explains how he and Johnny Cabot (Cash) met, and a bit about Johnny's dodgy history. By illustration, we’re shown a flashback scene depicting Johnny emptying what appears to be the entire contents of a machine gun into someone while looking intensely cold and evil, and then we jump to the opening title and credits over which Johnny Cash's voice sings catchy theme song 'Five Minutes to Live'.

We next see Johnny lazing around playing his guitar in a cheap motel room while a woman nearby gets dressed, and are told by the narrator that he spent his time dossing about while his girlfriend went out to work to support him. Charming. He gets a phone call from a friend offering him a part in a good 'job' working for Fred Dorella whom, it transpires, wants to rob a bank. But not just an ordinary stick-up: Dorella’s plan is for Johnny to hold Ken Wilson the bank manager's wife hostage in their home while Dorella goes to the bank to see Wilson, and Johnny is to make a phone call to Wilson there at a pre-determined time threatening to kill his wife in five minutes if he doesn't fork over the money to Dorella.

So, Johnny cold-bloodedly murders his girlfriend (charming, again) and goes off, guitar case in hand, to meet up with Dorella. Johnny's ruse for gaining access to the bank manager's house is to pretend to be a door-to-door salesman offering guitar lessons, hence why he has brought the guitar. Dorella drives Johnny to the house and they park down the road to wait until Mr Wilson leaves for work and son Bobby leaves for school. When they get the all-clear, Johnny goes to the house and gives Mrs Wilson a charming-sounding sales pitch on the doorstep. Using the old chestnut of asking her for a drink of water, he follows her in and pulls a gun on her. Much, much unpleasantness ensues over the next hour.

This is an engrossing film with a good story, albeit looking low-budget and being a bit short at an hour and fourteen minutes, plus the ending is a tad unconvincing in some respects. I would have given it three stars but the presence of the great Johnny Cash bumps it up to four stars for me. The story is fairly complex with a few unexpected elements thrown in that add to the suspense, and there are some good twists, so despite being a relatively short film it is quite action-packed and you don’t notice the short running time.

Johnny Cash fans will probably have mixed feelings about this film. On the one hand, it's a fascinating experience to see him as an actor, and he's really surprisingly good. On the other hand, he plays such an ultra-despicable character in many scenes of surprising brutality, many of which are quite harrowing especially considering how long ago this film was made, that they may be horrified. This was made in the early days of his fame and I don’t know what his fans would have made of this film at the time, to see their hero portraying such an unremittingly dislikeable character – they must have wondered what demons this young singer had within him to play it so convincingly!

The performances on the part of the other actors is of a good calibre too (albeit not as overwhelming as Johnny’s), particularly from Vic Tayback as Dorella, and we even have serious actress Pamela Mason (wife of James Mason) in a supporting role, the nature of which I won’t reveal here as it would be a spoiler for the story. And of course, it's fun to see now-famous top Hollywood director Ron Howard (The Da Vinci Code, A Beautiful Mind, Cocoon, Frost/Nixon, amongst many others) in his former persona of child star Ronnie Howard, playing perky little Bobby. There is also a small part for Merle Travis, another famed country singer of the time (writer of the song ‘Sixteen Tons’).

In black & white with a down-and-dirty gritty cinematography style verging on Film Noir – lots of good use of shadow and stark lighting. I don’t think the look of the film would have come across as effectively in its dark and menacing way if it had been produced in colour and/or filmed in a more ‘polished’ style. The musical score is fairly sparse but we get treated to a few instances of Johnny noodling on his guitar to while away the time while holding Mrs Wilson captive.

Recommended for the oddity value of Johnny’s OTT performance as well as an intriguing story; good for a rainy weekend afternoon, a big bowl of popcorn and nerves of steel.

Also on ciao.com as EsmeraldaDragon and dooyoo.co.uk as thereddragon. 

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