Anthony Perkins does an effective almost like continuation of the Norman Bates character in this 1962 film. Sophia Loren is equally effective doing a Norma Desmond crack-up like character in the film as well.Misdeed comes to the unhappily married couple when the plane Perkins is flying on crashes and he is thrown from the plane and survives. No one has to notice that so he literally returns from the dead and plots with Loren to get the insurance money. He promises her her freedom from him, only to go back on his word when she finally gets the money by saying that after all she lied and signed papers to get the money.Gig Young is the reporter she meets earlier after he takes over the apartment of Jean Pierre Aumont who is fortunate enough to exit this film quite early.Everyone is dancing about twisting in the era of the twist and there is that obnoxious little boy, a neighbor from quite the way, who sees Perkins and tries to be his friend.

A prestigious director, two celebrated screenwriters, a trendy early-'60s production design, and Sophia Loren and Anthony Perkins, and this ludicrous crime drama just adds up to misguided. Others have pointed to Perkins' miscasting, but who could have persuasively played this despicable rotter, who goes from beastly to charming and back again in a snap, sometimes in the same line? He's an abusive husband who fights with wife Sophia, heads off to Casablanca for a business trip, the plane crashes and he's presumed dead, but he returns, and schemes to collect a large insurance policy he took out at the airport. (This couple, with their designer fashions and her fabulous sports car, don't look to be hurting for money.) Eventually the insurance-fraud plot turns to murder, and Sophia's forced to turn to smarmy Gig Young, at the tail end of his leading-man days, for advice and consolation. And there it just ends, when the plot hasn't been resolved at all and we're not even sure whether we're on her side or not. Sophia does not look happy to be there, but she's at least focused and consistent, which is more than can be said for Perkins, and there's a notably good supporting turn by child actor Tommy Norden, as a snoopy neighbor who threatens to undo the larceny. It all feels quite modern and with-it for 1962, with moody black-and-white photography and jazzy score, and it ain't dull. But it sure ain't good.

Certainly Anatole Litvak was no slouch as a director, but he missed the mark here in "Five Miles to Midnight," a 1962 film starring Sophia Loren, Tony Perkins and Gig Young.Lisa Macklin (Sophia Loren) married to an American, believes that her husband (Tony Perkins) has been killed in an airplane crash. Actually, he was a survivor and wants to collect $120,000 in insurance he took out before the flight by pretending to be dead. Of course, his wife has to collect it. The two don't exactly get along, and the only way to be rid of him is for Lisa to collect the money for him. She is falling for a newspaperman (Young), who is suspicious as to what is going on. Her husband promises he will let her go once he has the money.This is a very unsatisfactory film, in part because of the miscasting of Tony Perkins as Loren's husband. Not only that, but the acting just isn't very good even from pros like Loren, Perkins and Young. Litvak only made two more films after this - it appears he lost his touch after making some marvelous films: This Above All, All This and Heaven Too, Tovarich, City for Conquest. Either that or he had to make too many concessions. At any rate, he didn't pay too much attention to what the actors were doing. The story just meanders along. Not very good.

This is not a great film, but it's enough of a curious film to merit watching. The story deals with a wife who loathes her husband (Anthony Perkins) and thinks him dead. If it is true she is well rid of him. It is not true, and he forces her to go through a life insurance swindle (for a big paying policy on his life). In the course of the movie she meets an insurance investigator (Gig Young) who she would really feel good with. But she has to keep up the lie that Perkins is dead, and Young grows more suspicion. And the pressure of the lie, and meeting Perkins demands, and facing Young's questions is building up more and more on Loren. The conclusion (which I will not reveal) was a surprise for Loren fans, and remains the only time she ever did this in a movie - she goes mad.