''Five Days'' is a 1954 British
film noir
Film noir (; ) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American '' ...
directed by
Montgomery Tully starring
Dane Clark,
Paul Carpenter and
Thea Gregory. It was produced by
Hammer Film Productions and shot at
Bray Studios with sets designed by the
art director
Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film and television, the Internet, and video games.
It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and unify the vis ...
J. Elder Wills. It was made as a
second feature
A B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double featur ...
for release on a
double bill
The double feature is a motion picture industry phenomenon in which theatres would exhibit two films for the price of one, supplanting an earlier format in which one feature film and various short subject reels would be shown.
Opera use
Opera ho ...
.
[Chibnall & McFarlane p.81] It was released in the United States by
Lippert Pictures Lippert Pictures was an American film production and distribution company controlled by Robert L. Lippert.
History
Robert L. Lippert (1909-1976) was a successful exhibitor, owning a chain of movie theaters in California and Oregon. He was frustrat ...
as ''Paid to Kill''.
Plot
James Nevill, a nearly bankrupt businessman, hires his best friend to kill him so his wife can collect on his life insurance. After his business takes a sudden upswing he changes his mind, but he must get to the killer and tell him so before the killer gets to him first. Nevill suffers several near misses before learning that his partner and another person really do want to kill him, not his best friend, whom they have kidnapped and framed.
Cast
*
Dane Clark as James Nevill
* Cecile Chevreau as Joan Peterson
*
Paul Carpenter as Paul Kirby
*
Thea Gregory as Andrea Nevill
*
Anthony Forwood as Glanville
*
Arthur Young as Hyson
*
Howard Marion-Crawford
Howard Marion-Crawford (17 January 1914 – 24 November 1969), the grandson of writer F. Marion Crawford, was an English character actor, best known for his portrayal of Dr. Watson in the 1954 television adaptation of Sherlock Holmes. In 1 ...
as Cyrus McGowan
*
Arnold Diamond as Perkins
*
Charles Hawtrey as Bill
*
Peter Gawthorne as Bowman
*
Avis Scott
Avis Scott (22 February 1918 – 31 May 2010) was a British film and theatre actress. She was born in London as Avis F Scutt, daughter of Arthur Octavius Scutt and Freda May Palmer. She emigrated to the U ...
as Eileen
*
Geoffrey Sumner as Chapter
* Ross Hutchinson as Ingham
* Martin Lawrence as Grover - Masseur
* Leslie Wright as Hunter
*
Larry Taylor
Samuel Lawrence Taylor (June 26, 1942 – August 19, 2019) was an American bass guitarist, best known for his work as a member of Canned Heat from 1967. Before joining Canned Heat he had been a session bassist for The Monkees and Jerry Lee L ...
as Tough in Bar
*
Warren Mitchell as Laughing Man in Bar
*
Hugo Schuster
Hugo Schuster (22 November 1886 – 10 July 1976) was a German-British actor.
Biography
Born in Aachen, Germany, Schuster began his career acting at Otto Brahm's Berlin Lessing Theater. In the 1920s, he acted in the leading German theat ...
as Professor
References
Bibliography
* Chibnall, Steve & McFarlane, Brian. ''The British 'B' Film''. Palgrave MacMillan, 2009.
External links
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1954 films
1954 crime drama films
British black-and-white films
British crime drama films
Film noir
Films about contract killing
Films directed by Montgomery Tully
Hammer Film Productions films
Lippert Pictures films
Films shot at Bray Studios
Films set in London
1950s English-language films
1950s British films
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