Hell Is a City

Hell Is a City is a 1960 British crime thriller film directed by Val Guest and starring Stanley Baker, John Crawford and Donald Pleasence. It was written by Guest based on the 1954 novel of the same title by Maurice Procter, and made by British studio Hammer Film Productions on location in Manchester. It was partly inspired by the British New Wave films and resembles American film noir.

Hell Is a City
Directed by	Val Guest
Screenplay by	Val Guest
Based on	Hell Is a City by Maurice Procter
Produced by	Michael Carreras
Starring	Stanley Baker John Crawford Donald Pleasence
Cinematography	Arthur Grant
Edited by	John Dunsford James Needs
Music by	Stanley Black
Color process	Black and white
Production companies	Associated British Picture Corporation Hammer Films
Distributed by	Warner-Pathé Distributors
Release dates	10 April 1960 (1960-04-10) (Manchester Premiere) 1 May 1960 (1960-05-01) (UK)
Running time	96 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	£115,000

Plot

Committed but seen-it-all police inspector Harry Martineau rightly guesses that after a violent jailbreak a local criminal will head home to Manchester to pick up the spoils from his last job. Martineau is soon investigating a murder during a street robbery which seems to lead back to the same villain. Concentrating on the case and using his local contacts to try to track the gang down, he is aware he is not keeping his own personal life together as well as he might.

Cast

• Stanley Baker as Inspector Harry Martineau
• John Crawford as Don Starling
• Donald Pleasence as Gus Hawkins
• Maxine Audley as Julia Martineau
• Billie Whitelaw as Chloe Hawkins
• Joseph Tomelty as Furnisher Steele
• George A. Cooper as Doug Savage
• Geoffrey Frederick as Detective Devery
• Vanda Godsell as Lucky Luske
• Charles Houston as Clogger Roach
• Joby Blanshard as Tawny Jakes
• Charles Morgan as Laurie Lovett
• Peter Madden as Bert Darwin
• Dickie Owen as Bragg
• Lois Daine as Cecily Wainwright
• Warren Mitchell as commercial traveller
• Sarah Branch as Silver Steele
• Alister Williamson as Sam
• Russell Napier as Superintendent
• Philip Bond as Headquarters PC (uncredited)
• John Comer as plainclothes Police Driver (uncredited)
• John Harvey as fingerprint officer (uncredited)
• Doris Speed as older nursing Sister in Hospital (uncredited)

Production

In a 1988 interview, Val Guest said: "Mike Carreras fell for the book, he liked it very much and gave to me to read, then he bought the rights from ABP [Associated British Picture Corporation] ‘cos they were never going to make it, and we made it on location, and the whole thing was this Detective Inspecor Martineau … and this very human detective, tough, rough, but human with his own problems at home, with a wife who nagged, falling for a barmaid who was part of his investigation, it was a real slice of life, putting the police down as human beings."

Critical reception

In contemporary reviews,Variety said "Val Guest’s taut screenplay, allied to his own deft direction, has resulted in a notable film in which the characters are all vividly alive, the action constantly gripping and the background of a provincial city put over with authenticity."

Kine Weekly wrote: "The tale is fiction, but its types, expertly portrayed by a hand-picked cast – Stanley Baker adds another commanding portrait to his already long and impressive gallery as the hero – thoroughly convince, while apt asides, embracing sentiment and sex, subtly punctuate the rough stuff.  ... The picture sharply cross-sections north country life and effectively employs warm sentiment and shrewd comedy touches to underline violent action, culminating in the villain's spectacular apprehension.."

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Any British crime picture that forswears the sleazy bars and pseudo-luxury flats of London and the sinister country houses of the Home Counties deserves some welcome, even if the road to the industrial North is by now well and diversely pioneered. This film may not re-create the atmosphere of Manchester any more effectively than Violent Playground (1958) did that of Liverpool, but in the coin-tossing game on the dingy moor outside a little factory town it has a most striking outdoor sequence, thanks in great measure to Arthur Grant's stark photography and the choice of extras who really look their parts. ... Elsewhere, Val Guest's script and direction maintain a hectic pace, with frequent scene changes, mobility of camera and performers, and much rapid, loud, intense dialogue, all making most recent American gangster films seem weakly constructed and slow-moving. There is a perpetual feeling of barely suppressed savagery, submerged in the excitement and rush of the early scenes, but undisguised later with a near-rape and the hunting and shooting of the deaf-mute blonde, Silver – almost the only character who is neither depraved nor at least coarsened."

Writing in The Guardian, Philip French said: "Guest's dialogue is abrasive and unsentimental, the editing (to a modern jazz score) rapid without being self-consciously smart, the accents mostly convincing."

Leslie Halliwell called the film: "Lively semi-documentary, cameo-filled cop thriller filmed on location."

In British Sound Films David Quinlan writes: "With its tough approach and patchwork of small scenes, this exciting thriller was the forerunner of much British TV cops-and-robbers to follow."

Empire said: "[Baker and Pleasance] turn in fierce performances and Guest's direction gives the movie a splendidly wrought realism, capturing a nasty underworld Britain rarely envisioned since."

Time Out said: "A persuasively sweaty crime thriller set in Manchester ... The atmosphere is persuasively seedy and downbeat, and there's a striking performance by Billie Whitelaw".

The Manchester Evening News said " With its panoply of bantering barmaids, silver-tongued felons and lush wives, a clipped camera style and hard-boiled sensibilities (which seem a little bit Z-Cars now), Hell Is A City is probably a film which deserves to have featured more prominently in British movie memory."

External links

• Hell Is a City at IMDb
• Hell Is a City at the BFI's Screenonline
• Hell Is a City at BritMovie (archived)
• Levenshulme: Hell Is a City File