Five Miles to Midnight (1963)

Load of rubbish!!

hyped garbage

Best movie ever!

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

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.

This is a miscasting masterpiece. Tony Perkins is still the perpetual troubled youth with the reed-like body. First, he is never believable as a married straight man, even in a good film. He is at his best playing neurotic boy men who cannot find their way. Here he is up against the sensual earth mother, Sophia Loren, of all people. Sophia does her best to raise Tony to her level but all for naught. He tries to mentally abuse Sophia and physically gets in a few jabs, slaps mostly. Sophia is much larger than Tony so it all comes off as absurd. She could take him with one punch. Don't tell me a savvy Italian woman like herself didn't shove around a few over zealous American soldiers during the war. She can take care of herself. Tony is only terrifying when he has a weapon and in this one he's weaponless. It's just too dull for words. He looks like he needs to be put to bed with a story and glass of milk. Thank God they didn't waste any technicolor on this one.

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.