Review of Five Miles to Midnight (1962) by Michael T — 17 Aug 2016

Anatole Litvak could not decide if he was directing a Hitchcockian Thriller about a mismatched couple with a bizarre get-rich-quick scheme or if he was directing a serious Drama with Thriller trappings about a mismatched couple and their deteriorating marriage.

Lisa (Sophie Loren) married Bob (Anthony Perkins) when she was a young woman in economically-ravaged postwar Italy and he was an American GI who seemed to offer the world to her. Now the couple is in Paris and Lisa holds down a steady job at a high-end Parisian boutique while Bob drifts from job to job, listless and lacking the drive to succeed.

Bob's boyish charms and good looks have opened a lot of doors but his immaturity, lack of resolve, and an irrational jealousy about his wife have closed a lot of doors. Lisa tells Bob she wants to leave him.

Then he miraculously walks away from a plane crash whilst on route to Casablanca; the authorities think that Bob is among the dead and there is a life insurance policy that the widow can collect on and Bob convinces Lisa to do so, promising to get out of her life with the money.

But Bob's anger, jealousy, and bad luck may sink the plan. A young American boy, Johnny (Tommy Nordon) spots Bob hiding in the apartment and an American reporter, David (Gig Young) becomes interested in Lisa and suspicious of her at the same time.

Not a bad little film, but it wasn't anything I had not seen before in other Thrillers, I predicted the outcome well before it occurred.