Five Minutes to Live
AKA Door-to-Door Maniac
Five Minutes to Live is a short little crime drama featuring Johnny Cash as a rather repugnant criminal. Cash plays Johnny Cabot (adding one more name to the list of non-actors who have trouble responding to any name except the one they were given), a ruthless killer in hiding who teams up with fellow criminal Fred Dorella to rob a bank of the vast sum of $70,000 (It was 1961. That was big dough back then.)
Dorella, the mastermind of the duo, has a simple plan. Johnny kidnaps the wife of one of the bank executives and holds her hostage, while Dorella goes to the bank with a ransom note. Dorella thinks his plan is perfect. He’s been staking out the house the executive lives in for over a month and believes he has the job timed down almost to the second.
Also, check out that house over there. You, me, white picket fence... What do you say?
What they don’t count on is the bank executive having an affair, thinking about running away with his mistress and trying to work up the courage to ask for a divorce. Oopsie. That, my dear fellows, is called poor planning.
Most of the movie is taken up with scenes of Cash terrorizing the poor housewife. He prods her with his gun, shoots and smashes things and then subjects her to the sound of him playing the movies title song. Not content to psychologically torment her, he also does so physically in the most repulsive way, at one point forcing his way into the bedroom and forcing her to put on a frilly negligee.
Yeah, she looks totally into you.
For a B-movie that was obviously filmed on a shoestring budget, the acting isn’t half bad. Most of the side characters range from passable to pretty good and Cash doesn’t suck as much as I thought he might. That said though, while he does display some obvious raw talent, he probably should have skipped the acting roles. He can pull off repulsive criminal quite well (surprisingly well, actually), but physicality is not his strong suite, so the moments where he was scuffling with the housewife were almost head-shakingly bad.
Overall, the film’s pretty good. It’s not the best written, or best directed and it has some slow moments in the middle where it seems the writer or director were trying to make a statement about suburbia. I suppose they made their point, as it is the dullest point of the film, but it’s also short and doesn’t take away too much from the rest of the movie. It’s a nice, quick little crime drama which is probably best enjoyed by people who like Johnny Cash or B-movies in general.
Oh, and the movie also has a 7-year old Ron Howard as Bobby, so there’s that.
Seen here portraying the un-Opie-ist Opie he could muster.
The Vampire
AKA Mark of the Vampire
I’d never heard of this movie, but that’s really not all that surprising. There are so many movie’s with the word Vampire in the title, that it’s easy to see how a few of them could be overlooked.
Dr. Beecher is the good, quiet small town doctor who is loved and respected by all. But a series of events involving the work of a local scientist in town causes him to accidentally take a pill designed to “cause the mind to revert to a primitive state.” Unfortunately, the scientists experimental animals found the drug habit forming, causing them to die if the dosage was withheld for 24-hours- all the animals except for the bats, that is (it’s always the damn bats.)
The Vampire is interesting in that it is not strictly a ‘monster movie’, instead focusing on science instead of the strictly supernatural to explain much of what is going on. Yes, it might be a fair question to ask why a scientist would be experimenting on such things, as the initial reaction to the information can be a bit repulsive. But, scientists and psychologists have long been studying and making progress in both physical and mental illnesses in animals by studying abnormalities, either natural or induced. It’s this more plausible premise that gives the film a bit more weight
Why he turns into a bat with epidermal issues is a question for another time.
The acting for the movie is well above par, with the cast being filled with actors who were either already or would become TV/Movie veterans. The interactions between characters flow naturally and Beecher’s increasing addiction is believable, and unforced. And when Beecher realizes what’s going on and attempts to send his daughter away for her own safety the scene between them is almost heartbreaking. Really, the only downside to the acting is towards the end, when Dr. Beecher ends up sounding more like some large rodent than the bat he’s (supposedly?) supposed to resemble. But I’ll put most of the blame for that on the sound department. Other than that, top notch.
The biggest issue the film has is that the make-up is a little cheesy (read: Poorly inadequate) , which is quite a shame. You don’t see him in full make-up until the end, but it’s still a little disappointing. I suppose they used up their special effects money to show us what the ‘vampires’ victims looked like.
The skin melted off, but the eyes remained fully intact? I hope it’s some small conciliation to her that she’ll be able to freak out
future grave robbers.
In the end, The Vampire is a very interesting variation on the vampire theme. It’s less a vampire movie and more of a combination of The Wolf Man and Jekyll and Hyde with a dash of Frankenstein thrown in for good measure. It even throws in the requisite message of not tampering with things man was meant to leave alone. Except in this case the victim isn’t the mad scientist experimenting with things he shouldn’t be experimenting with. Beecher is just a man who cares too much. By the end you feel sorry for him, because he’s just a good man subjected to a cruel fate. If you enjoy vampire or monster movies and aren’t turned off by the poor make-up feel free to give this a shot.
As far as I can tell, neither title is currently playing on Netflix.
I thought I was a reasonably big Johnny Cash fan but I'd never heard of this film. From what I know about him, at that period of his life repulsive criminal wasn't too far away from his on tour persona so this role wouldn't have been too much of a stretch. 
