Hell Is a City

1960

Crime / Thriller

4
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 60% · 5 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 71% · 50 ratings
IMDb Rating 7.0/10 10 1489 1.5K

Plot summary

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.


Uploaded by: FREEMAN
August 11, 2024 at 01:39 AM

Director

Top cast

Donald Pleasence as Gus Hawkins
Billie Whitelaw as Chloe Hawkins
Stanley Baker as Det. Inspector Harry Martineau
John Crawford as Don Starling
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
845.54 MB
1280*546
English 2.0
NR
us  
25 fps
1 hr 31 min
Seeds 14
1.53 GB
1920*820
English 2.0
NR
us  
25 fps
1 hr 31 min
Seeds 11

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by movieman_kev 8 / 10

another great film from Hammer

Inspector Martineau knows in his gut that a recently escaped criminal will come back to the scene of the crime to recover the goods that he's stolen. It's up to him to piece together the new assignment that he's given and trace it back to the guilty party. Stanley Baker shines as Martineau (one year later Baker would be in one of the greatest war films ever with "The Guns of Navarone") in this taunt, gripping little crime thriller by Val Guest. All the minor characters are equally good. This is one film that I wouldn't mind revisiting. Another great film to come out of the sadly defunct Hammer studios.

My Grade:B+

DVD Extras: Commentary by Val Guest and Journalist Ted Newsom; Alternate Ending; Talent Bios for Val Guest and Stanley Baker; and Theatrical Trailer

Eye Candy:a blink and you'll miss it Billy Whitelaw topless scene

Reviewed by lee_eisenberg 8 / 10

Hammer noir

Hammer Films, best known for horror movies, stepped into film noir with Val Guest's "Hell Is a City". Stanley Baker plays a police inspector who suspects that an escaped criminal will head for Manchester to collect some loot. The dreary look of the city is as much a character as any of the actors. The post-war British film industry wasn't generally known for these sorts of movies, but they did an excellent job here. The chase at the end of the movie is impressive but I thought that the most effective scene was the whole sequence where the criminal hides in the woman's house.

I've liked every film noir that I've seen, but HIAC has to be one of the best. Baker's forceful performance as the hardened inspector is the epitome of acting. I recommend the movie.

The rest of the cast includes Donald Pleasance (Dr. Loomis in the "Halloween" franchise), Billie Whitelaw (the nanny in "The Omen") and Joseph Tomelty (the father of Sting's ex-wife).

Reviewed by Bunuel1976 7 / 10

HELL IS A CITY (Val Guest, 1960) ***

I had been postponing my purchase of this and another Stanley Baker crime drama, Joseph Losey's THE CRIMINAL (1960; see below), ever since their DVD release back in 2002; ironically, what eventually pushed me into ordering them was the recent death of this film's director Val Guest - at the venerable age of 94! Well, all I can say is that I was foolish to have deprived myself of it for so long; this is surely one of the best British crime films ever and, being an atypical release for Hammer, is also one of their finest non-horror efforts!

During the excellent Audio Commentary included on the splendid Anchor Bay DVD edition, Guest admitted that one of his major influences (and not only on this particular film) had been Jules Dassin's innovative THE NAKED CITY (1948) and, curiously enough, one has to go back to Dassin's own NIGHT AND THE CITY (1950) to find an equally hard-hitting British noir!; then again, the film was ahead of its time since it would be years before a similarly truthful depiction of a policeman's domestic life would emerge in the U.S. (THE DETECTIVE and MADIGAN {both 1968}, for instance). The film is a veritable class act in every department: Guest's direction never puts a foot wrong and his screenplay (adapted from a novel by Maurice Proctor and deservedly nominated for a BAFTA award) is truly exceptional; Arthur Grant's chiaroscuro camera-work (mostly shot in real Manchester locations) is stunning; while Stanley Black's jazzy score lends the fast-paced if rather involved proceedings the requisite urgency.

Stanley Baker has one of his best leading roles as the tough cop who tries to make several ends meet - catch a dangerous criminal (American actor John Crawford, very effective) who's basically his alter ego, save his childless marriage with selfish Maxine Audley, and escape the daily temptation of a fling with the carnal (despite being middle-aged) but genuinely concerned barmaid Vanda Godsell (who also happens to be Crawford's old flame). Donald Pleasence has an important, scene-stealing supporting role as a bookmaker marked for robbery by Crawford - who had also been intimate with Pleasence's sluttish young wife (Billie Whitelaw who, despite this being her 12th feature film, was impressive enough to be up for the "Most Promising Newcomer" BAFTA award - and is even featured in a brief but startling nude scene which was promptly snipped for the U.S. version!). The rest of the cast is filled with familiar character actors, many of them members of Guest's own stock company.

Among the film's best scenes are the swift alleyway heist towards the beginning (which ends in murder), the wonderful "tossing school" (an illegal form of gambling) scene which takes place on the moors, several grueling interrogation scenes (with Baker often reduced to blackmailing his hard-as-nails 'customers') and the remarkably violent rooftop climax. By the way, I wasn't as displeased as Guest was with the alternate ending included as an extra (and which he had never seen before!) - inverting a couple of scenes and adding a brief hopeful coda (not filmed by Guest) with Baker and Audley - but I totally respect the director's decision to stick with his uncompromising original vision.

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