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Surprisingly incoherent and boring

How sad is this?

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Hammer Films, best known for horror movies, stepped into film noir with Val Guest's "Hell Is a City". Stanley Baker plays a police inspector who suspects that an escaped criminal will head for Manchester to collect some loot. The dreary look of the city is as much a character as any of the actors. The post-war British film industry wasn't generally known for these sorts of movies, but they did an excellent job here. The chase at the end of the movie is impressive but I thought that the most effective scene was the whole sequence where the criminal hides in the woman's house.I've liked every film noir that I've seen, but HIAC has to be one of the best. Baker's forceful performance as the hardened inspector is the epitome of acting. I recommend the movie.The rest of the cast includes Donald Pleasance (Dr. Loomis in the "Halloween" franchise), Billie Whitelaw (the nanny in "The Omen") and Joseph Tomelty (the father of Sting's ex-wife).

HELL IS A CITY - 1960 Hammer films is best known for horror and vampire type fare. But they did produce the odd crime and noir before the swing to the more profitable blood- letting films.Stanley Baker headlines here, as a tough as nails, no nonsense, Detective with the Manchester Police Service. Baker has just been informed that a man, John Crawford, a gangster Baker had sent up the river has escaped from prison. The swine had killed a guard during the escape.Needless to say Crawford heads back to Manchester. He wants to pick up a stash of jewels he has hidden from a previous robbery. He also wants to pull another job to get some readies to blow the country with. A new life somewhere else seems like the ticket.Crawford makes contact with several of his old gang about a job he has figured. They are going to hit a race track odds makers, Donald Pleasence's bag of cash. Crawford knows about this because he used to bed Pleasence's new wife, Billie Whitelaw.The gang pull the robbery but of course they end up killing the young girl carrying the cash. The Police are quickly on the case and pull in all the usual suspects. A little bit of heavy leaning, soon has the Police onto all the "proper" people. Crawford is forced to go to ground as his possible hideouts dry up.This leads to a great chase over the various rooftops and ends with a full-fledged, knockdown, drag out, knuckle exchange on said rooftops. Crawford is corralled and is soon on death row.This is a very good crime/noir film with top work from the entire cast and crew. Director Val Guest hits all the marks squarely in this one. This one has it all, superb b/w photography, good acting, top jazzy score and more than enough violence to go around.A keeper in anyone's book!

"Life on Mars"?This is more like life on Pluto.Mr Stanley Baker plays the type of cop who feels compelled to try it on with any female with a pulse. He can't walk past an open pub door and threatens to rape his wife in order to impregnate her against her will.Just another day at the office for one of Manchester's finest. "Hell is a city" is an over - rated pseudo Don Siegel opus.Possibly seeing itself as a herald of a new hard - hitting school of Britcop movies,it has a sub - sub Elmer Bernstein/Leith Stevens/Shorty Rogers soundtrack of generic Britjazz cobbled together by that clever musical chameleon Mr Stanley Black that places it exactly in its era. It borrows that hoary old Western plot about childhood companions turned deadly adversaries that ends with one of them dangling on the end of a rope.Full of British actors assuming the all - encompassing "Northern" accent that is both inaccurate and insulting to its Manchester setting, it deals the English language a further blow by having an American play a Manc villain,a piece of casting of breathtaking audacity and indifference to the audience's intelligence. Cardboard character follows cardboard character muttering "eee by gum" imprecations,Yorkshire and Lancashire dialects being freely mixed.Stanley Baker's Inspector Martineau is a despicable woman - hating psychopath.Novelist Maurice Procter who wrote the novel on which the movie was based was said to be "delighted" with the result.It all seems a bit rum to me.

This is a wonderful example of how worldly some british films can seem, while maintaining their local flavor. I believe that this film is very appropriately set in Manchester, anyone having been to Manchester will tell you its quite a tough place.50s British entertainment was heavily influenced by Hollywood and continued to be influenced especially on TV until the late 70s, when things all started to get a bit colorless. This movie was made in a time when entertainment came first and the needs of the audience and hence a box office return, came before the politically correct requirements of the day. Having said that I have to say I'm VERY glad that you don't see many characters quite as sorry as Martineau's repressed housebound wife these days!For those who are not familiar with director Val Guest - check out his other movies. He was a director who knew exactly what he was doing.