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To me, this movie is perfection.

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A Masterpiece!

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Originally released in 1961 as Five Minutes to Live, this low-budget crime drama was later re-released as Door-to-Door Maniac. Fred narrates the film in flashback, detailing a suburban bank robbery that goes awry. In his simple plan, he hires a hard-up hood, Johnny Cabot to take the wife of the bank's vice president hostage. Cabot will hold her until he gets a call alerting him that Fred has been successful in getting ransom money. Cabot waits, and watches the Wilson house as the husband leaves for the bank and their young son heads off to school. Posing as a door- to-door guitar instructor, he forces his way into the house and takes Nancy Wilson hostage. At the bank, Fred talks his way into Ken Wilson's office, and presents his personal check for $70,000, intending that Wilson will withdraw the funds to cover the check as a ransom for his wife. He has Wilson call home to prove that Nancy is being held by the unstable Cabot, and gives Wilson 5 minutes to make his decision.Not a great film. Johnny Cash can't act at all and he brings down the production. The prints of this film currently look like they were lifted off a TV -- kine-scope fashion which makes it hard to watch. The characters are broadly drawn and dated.Opie is in the movie too and his scene plays like a TV commercial.In all, just not so good.

This movie starts out fair enough. We see Johnny Cash shooting down police officers, his face jiggling as his machine gun rattles. A cool song of his comes on called, appropriately enough, "Five minutes to live". A couple of scenes pass buy, introducing the characters, who seemed interesting, at first. Johnny Cabot is an ex-con looking for a way to make some quick cash. Nancy Wilson is a housewife too caught up in activities outside the home to spend time with her family. Donald Wilson is her bored bank president husband, who is seeing another woman on the side. And then there's "Ronnie" Howard, as their son. There's a couple of other characters, two cons who include Johnny in their scam in robbing the banker. If he doesn't give them the cash, his wife gets shot by Johnny Cash. So the first few minutes were promising. Them, when Johnny got the banker's wife into her home alone, I could tell this was going to be boring. After Johnny smashes some pottery and forces himself upon Nancy, there really wasn't much left for them to do except sit around playing guitar while one points a gun at the other. I'll admit a bit of suspense comes into play, as the two wait for the call from the banker that will save the woman's life,but this accumulates to nothing, as, rest assured, owl' Donald comes to the rescue just in time to save his wife. The problem with this movie was, it tried it's best to NOT be dark. It added bland humor at every possible moment, gave Ronnie some mildly funny jabs, and makes sure the ending is as happy as possible. Ronnie doesn't get shot, after all, bad guy dies, Donald ends his affair, and they all lived happily ever after. The movie is wrapped up with a little bow, as Nancy and Donald drive off with grins on their faces and stars in their eyes.This overshadows the somewhat dark performance by Johnny Cash, and the first 10 minutes or so, which has several people shot down by Johnny. In my opinion, it looks like they tried to make a film noir for Andy Griffith fans, and just didn't pull it off successfully. Maybe, if this film were remade by the Coen Brothers, we would have a good film. I can see William H. Macy as Donald Wilson right now... Note:I was calling the hero character Donald Wilson. The character's name is Ken Wilson, while the actor's name is Donald Woods. My mistake.

Five Minutes to Live (1961) ** (out of 4) Bizarre thriller about a couple thieves who take a woman (Cay Forrester) hostage to get money from her husband (Donald Woods) who just happens to be Vice President at a local bank. One of the bad guys (Johnny Cash) stays behind with the wife while the other goes to the bank and unlucky for the woman, this guy is a raving maniac who enjoys to torture women. Being a fan of Cash I had always wanted to check this film out and now that I've seen it I'm really not sure what to think. On one hand, it's pretty silly story-wise as there are all sorts of plot holes in the thieves big plans but on the other hand you have some rather outrageous scenes of violence that will put the previous year's PSYCHO to shame. As a "thriller" the film works in parts because the violence is rather shocking. Cash not only physically abuses her with countless slaps, throws to the floor and pistol-whips but he also comes on to her sexuality and not in a consensual manor. The scenes of violence are rather tense but at the same time I can't help but think in some ways that the film is a spoof. Now, what I consider a spoof might hit others as bad film-making but just take a look at the editing here. The film goes for these over dramatic moments by quick edits to the actor's face and then we get silly one-liners. Some of the dialogue given out must have been seen as extremely silly as I'm doubtful a master writer like Cash would be saying them as something real. As far as Cash's performance goes, it's not too bad. He's obviously not a trained actor and he makes some silly facial gestures throughout but for the most part he comes off believable as this psycho. Character actor Woods has seen better days but he isn't too bad. Forrester on the other hand is pretty bad and many of her tears come off incredibly fake and at times laughable. We even get a young Ron Howard playing the couple's child. Cash plays his guitar throughout the film and he even sings the title song, which never made it onto any of his Greatest Hits collections for obvious reasons. To say this film is uneven would be an understatement but it's so bizarre that it's easy to recommend to fans of horror, film noir or just downright strange movies.

This film is best remembered for the fact that it stars country legend Johnny Cash is his first film role. This actually lowered my expectations for the film, as I'm not a massive fan of Cash and films that go down in history for the casting of a non-actor are often not very good...but this film has far more going for it than it's lead actor, and overall I've got to say that it's criminal that this hasn't won itself a more esteemed place in cinema history. It's clear that the film was shot on a very low budget as it features a very grainy black and white picture, a small central cast and some suspect acting from all corners; but all this stuff doesn't matter, as the screenplay is well written and there's a lot of fun to be had with this film. The plot follows a couple of guys who think they've discovered the perfect get rich quick scheme. One of them pretends to be a salesman in order to get into the house of the president of the women's association, while the other one pretends to be a customer at her husband's bank. After explaining the situation to her husband, they offer him a trade; his money or his wife.Overall, it has to be said that this little thriller isn't very original as there have been a lot of films in this same vein; but Bill Karn's film approaches it's subject with a fresh view, and the way that the director continually ensures the tone is always bleak provides a major highlight. It's easy to believe that the central character is in danger through Cash's loose cannon performance, and the way that the action focuses on two central locations; the family home and the bank, ensures that the plot always takes centre stage, and it is made interesting through its memorable cast of characters. Even though Cash wasn't predominantly an actor, his performance is really good and the way that the director lets him play his guitar makes best use of him. And on a personal note, I think it's good of Cash to put himself at risk to play a sadistic maniacal character. The rest of the support cast play second fiddle to the musical genius, but each one gives a good turn and this ensures that the film is elevated above its low budget thriller status. It all boils down to an exciting and satisfying climax that both deals fitting comeuppance, and rounds it all off nicely. Overall, this film is well worth tracking down and comes highly recommended!