Rent Hell Is a City (1959)

Shadows in the Rain: Manc Noir at Full Tilt - Hell Is a City review by griggs

Hell Is a City takes the mean streets of Manchester – which some already rank just below the underworld – and turns them into a playground for Stanley Baker’s hard-as-nails Inspector Martineau. He’s chasing an escaped killer, and Val Guest keeps the pace brisk, darting from smoky pubs to windswept moors with the occasional detour into marital misery.

Guest shoots it like Britain’s answer to Anthony Mann, swapping LA’s neon for soot-blackened chimney stacks and rain-slick cobbles. The location work is superb, giving the city an unvarnished, almost documentary bite.

Baker is the ideal noir lead: terse, uncompromising, and with just enough moral doubt to keep him interesting. There’s grit in the action and tension in the chases, though the domestic subplot slows things down. Still, as a slice of British noir, it’s sharp, lean, and unsentimental – proof that Manchester, for all its drizzle, can more than hold its own in the shadows.

Police drama. - Hell Is a City review by Steve

Bruising cop drama influenced by the procedural docu-noirs that came out of Hollywood after WWII. And while Val Guest's revision retains stylistic riffs which have become genre clichés, once the exciting story kicks in these hardly matter. This is a gripping thriller, led by a typically laconic and impassive performance from Stanley Baker.

He plays a hard as nails detective- yes, married to his job and neglectful of his long suffering wife. While investigating the murder of a young woman in a holdup, the cop finds he is on the trail of an escaped convict (John Crawford) he sent down and who swore revenge. Now all the contacts of the killer are in danger.

There's a nice plot detail which adds a little social commentary. The stolen banknotes have been treated with a chemical which shows up on the hands of everyone who handles them; who become literally marked. The cops trace the stain of dirty money as it spreads through the criminal community. Because crime touches everyone.

This is a realist film, expressively shot on the streets of Manchester and the surrounding moors. But the title is a little misleading; the mean streets of the black and white city just provide atmosphere. This is primarily a violent, fast moving policier and an ideal vehicle for Stanley Baker as the classic crime-busting loner.