Local bad boy Don Starling has busted out of the big house determined to return to Manchester and claim his ill gotten gains. Nemesis detective Martineau ( Stanley Baker) is certain he will return and when a botched robbery resulting in murder takes place he is certain Starling has something to do with it even though superiors doubt it. Hell is a City is comprised of one abrasive conversation after another whether dealing with desperate characters or disinterested wives. Everyone seems under pressure as they trade curt sentences between each other with very little development of character over the long haul. Martineau is clearly married to his job since his relationship with his wife is remote at best while he fends off flirtations from others. The males en masse mostly snarl and complain while the women are reduced to being either cold, seductive cheaters or in one case dead. After a few improbable coincidences Martineau and Starling meet high above Manchester on a rooftop locked in mortal combat. It is the most dramatic scene in the film that showcases its true star, the industrial city of Manchester as backdrop but director Val Guest fumbles this as well and Hell is a City fails to dig any deeper into its outline than an hour episode of Naked City and its emphasis on the urban mean streets.

image1.jpegHELL IS A CITY, 1959, Director Val GuestVIEWED in London at a special Hammer classics reissue press screening, c. 1996. Inspector Harry Martineau (Stanley Baker), a hard-boiled detective stationed in Manchester England, suspects that a ruthless escaped criminal Don Starling (John Crawford) will come back to town to retrieve a cache of stolen jewels he hid there before his conviction. Martineau has problems at home where he and his wife Julia (Maxine Audley) constantly bicker about his role as a cop which monopolizes his time, and their childless marriage. Starling arrives in town as expected and immediately forms a gang to rob a bookmaker Gus Hawkins (Donald Pleasance), to raise enough cash for a clean getaway but what they grab turns out to be a large amount of money in bank marked bills to prevent their theft. Starling kills a young girl during the robbery and dumps the body by the side of the road out in the country but is spotted by Martineau who is hot on his trail following down one hot lead after another. On the run with Martineau in hot pursuit, now wanted for murder, Starling takes refuge at one point hiding in the attic of the bookmaker he robbed (Pleasance) and threatening his philandering wife Chloe (Billie Whitelaw) he once had an affair with. When discovered by Pleasance Starling manages to knock him out with injuries that put him in the hospital. Martineau, following up another hunch, squeezes more information from Hawkins wife Chloe. At a large outdoor gambling game, where some of the tainted money changes hands, Martineau catches up with the accomplices in the robbery and is now just one step behind his quarry. Starling recovers the cache of stolen jewels from a crooked fence (Furnisher Steele) but has to hide in the storeroom upstairs when the police, tipped off, arrive on the scene. Here, in an extremely harrowing sequence which becomes the unforgettable centerpiece of the film, he holds the beautiful blonde daughter of the fence, Silver Steele, (Sarah Branch) hostage, but she is unable to scream for help because she is deaf and dumb. a( What a twist!) ~ As he stalks her around the attic room piled high with furniture, in desperation she manages to knock out a window which draws the attention of the neighborhood. Martineau breaks in and pursues the vicious killer in a final showdown up on the rooftops above Manchester -- the most suspenseful Mother of all rooftop chases ever filmed. At the end Martineau chooses his job over his marriage. In a wistful coda at his favorite saloon he runs into Lucky Lusk (Vanda Godsell) the attractive barmaid he has been flirting with all along, and she offers herself to him full on, but he turns her open ended offer down on the grounds that he is still married. "Well, she says, in wry resignation, "If you ever have a kid name it for me". The Martineau hard boiled cop figure who doesn't mind bending the law to get his man is a predecessor of Dirty Harry by some twenty years and the mean streets of the city of Manchester are portrayed like another main character hovering over the picture. A major city really seen in British films sits for a remarkable portrait. I had seen this movie years ago when it first came out but quickly disappeared. All I remembered was the white knuckle scene in the attic with the vicious killer relentlessly stalking the pathetically defenseless deaf and dumb girl -- every bit as harrowing and suspenseful now as it was back then. BRAVURA filmmaking beginning to end by Val Guest in a classic B/w mold. Unforgettable. The perfect thriller. Stanley Baker, usually seen in meaty supporting roles, never quite became a top star, but was nevertheless one of the best and most businesslike British actors of his time.

Out of Hammer Films, Hell is a City is directed by Val Guest, who also adapts the screenplay from Maurice Proctor's novel of the same name. It stars Stanley Baker, John Crawford, Billie Whitelaw, Maxine Audley, Donald Pleasence, Vanda Godsell, Joseph Tomelty and George A. Cooper. Music is by Stanley Black and cinematography in HammerScope is by Arthur Grant. When violent criminal Don Starling (Crawford) escapes from prison, Manchester cop Inspector Harry Martineau (Baker) correctly assumes he is on his way back to the area to collect some hidden loot from a previous job. Sure enough a serious crime rocks the city and all roads lead to Starling, but what price will Martineau pay to nail a man whose mere name strikes fear into the locals? Has some bastard been passing me snide money? British crime drama at its best, absorbing as a suspense tale, clinically unflinching in its characterisations and directed with a deft hand by the multi talented Val Guest. Hell is a City is without question a very British movie, but in the same way that greats like Brighton Rock and They made Me A Fugitive were Britannia Rule Grimarannia, so it be here where Guest makes the most of Manchester's gloomy locales to pump bad blood into the edgy narrative. It's a Manchester of creaky terraced houses, working class bars, soiled streets and the unforgiving Moors. The latter of which a visual beauty to the eye, but home of misery both in fact and fiction. A Starling in the Attic. Tale unfolds as a sort of warts and all semi-documentary police procedural. Harry Martineau is the lead man, but this is no cliché addled copper, he is a tough bastard who is not adverse to using strong arm and dishonest tactics to get results. He's a hero, of sorts, but the happiness he craves outside of his work, at home, is moving further away from him. He's not alone, either, for many of the vivid characters on show here are either life's losers, illicit gamblers, unfaithful wives, lonely hearts, or cheaters and beaters, and that's before we get to Crawford's villain. Don Starling infects everyone with his evil stink, a robber, a rapist and a murderer, he may not look much physically in Crawford's shoes, but his name, voice and mere appearance has all but Martineau in a cold sweat. If a man ain't got kids he's still fair game! The script is devoid of pointless filler and no scene is wasted, there's an air of realism throughout. Sure there's a little leap of faith to be taken at times, but nothing that remotely could hurt the movie. The performances are from the better end of the scale, with Baker excelling as a stoic, but lonely man of the force, and Whitelaw and Godsell impressively force themselves up above the parapet to be rightly noticed in a movie predominantly beefed by machismo. Could Don Starling have been played by a better actor? Yes of course. Or just have been played by someone more menacing in appearance (like Baker in his villain roles for instance)? Again, yes of course. But the more you watch the more you will see that it's a frightening portrayal because it's very human, just like that given to Harry Martineau. Some scenes shock and distress, others hold you and enthral, Hell is a City is one hell of a film and highly recommended to crime and noir fans. 9/10

Hammer studios are, of course, best known for their horror films; but early on in the studio's history, there were a number of noir style films produced; and while this is one of the later efforts, it's surely one of the best! The film is clearly intended to mimic the American film noir being produced en mass during the fifties; although the film does retain an aura of Britishness which is achieved through the locations and strong accents of most of the lead characters. The film is suitably dark, though not as dark as many of its American counterparts. The plot focuses on a criminal that has escaped from jail after committing a robbery that went wrong. Inspector Harry Martineau, who happened to have gone to school with the criminal, guesses that he will return home to Manchester in order to pick up his share from the job. The criminal does return to Manchester and ends up with the inspector on his tail as he moves through the underworld, trying to find a place to hide.Writer-director Val Guest (who previously directed a handful of Hammer's earliest horror films) spins an interesting story that remains intriguing throughout. The dialogue is surprisingly witty at times, and the characters are 'cool' enough to rival the films that this one is trying to imitate. There's more to the plot than just what is immediately going on, and the inspector's personal life is one of the main sub-plots. This thread is somewhat well expanded; although it has to be said that some other areas of the plot do not go as far as they could; although at only ninety minutes, there was obviously only so much that could be squeezed in. The film moves forward well, although at times it is a little silly; a plot that hinges on the idea of nobody looking at their hands is somewhat far fetched. The cast is strong, with Stanley Baker and John Crawford taking the lead roles and doing well with them; there's also a small appearance for the great Donald Pleasance. Overall, Hell is a City is an excellent British noir, and well worth a look.