Five Minutes to Live aka Door-to-Door Maniac (1961)

(On Cable TV, September 2022) Oooh boy. As much as I like Johnny Cash, respect Johnny Cash, hum Johnny Cash and often dress like Johnny Cash (all in black, that is), the man had his limits, and seeing him trying to act in late-noir (or early-neo-noir) thriller Five Minutes to Live is an eloquent testimony that not everyone is meant to be a multi-hyphenate. Starring in such a low-budget, sparsely plotted film doesn’t help. While the film aims to create sensation by focusing on a criminal holding a housewife hostage while his accomplice is at the bank demanding a ransom from her banker husband, director Bill Karn can’t quite master what’s required to build a tight little thriller, let alone overcome Cash’s limitations as an actor. The result is certainly a curio for Cash fans (or for the then-young Ron Howard), but not much of a rewarding experience for film fans: the cheap production values don’t necessarily justify the semi-documentary approach and the grim finale doesn’t exactly leave everyone smiling. I have to commend Cash for his willingness to play a thoroughly detestable psychotic killer (with a guitar!) in his screen debut—most other people would have gone for a far easier character. But good intentions don’t make a good performance, and he’s both the most fascinating and the weakest element here. Sure, go ahead and take 80 minutes to take in Five Minutes to Live… but don’t say you weren’t forewarned.