Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

Tayyab Torres Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Bumpy Chip It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

ianlouisiana "Life on Mars"?This is more like life on Pluto.Mr Stanley Baker plays the type of cop who feels compelled to try it on with any female with a pulse. He can't walk past an open pub door and threatens to rape his wife in order to impregnate her against her will.Just another day at the office for one of Manchester's finest. "Hell is a city" is an over - rated pseudo Don Siegel opus.Possibly seeing itself as a herald of a new hard - hitting school of Britcop movies,it has a sub - sub Elmer Bernstein/Leith Stevens/Shorty Rogers soundtrack of generic Britjazz cobbled together by that clever musical chameleon Mr Stanley Black that places it exactly in its era. It borrows that hoary old Western plot about childhood companions turned deadly adversaries that ends with one of them dangling on the end of a rope.Full of British actors assuming the all - encompassing "Northern" accent that is both inaccurate and insulting to its Manchester setting, it deals the English language a further blow by having an American play a Manc villain,a piece of casting of breathtaking audacity and indifference to the audience's intelligence. Cardboard character follows cardboard character muttering "eee by gum" imprecations,Yorkshire and Lancashire dialects being freely mixed.Stanley Baker's Inspector Martineau is a despicable woman - hating psychopath.Novelist Maurice Procter who wrote the novel on which the movie was based was said to be "delighted" with the result.It all seems a bit rum to me.

BJJManchester A surprisingly tough,no-nonsense crime thriller for it's time,HELL IS A CITY (set in my hometown Manchester) has a fairly routine plot but has compensations with fast-moving direction by Val Guest,a decent script,a fine jazz score by Stanley Black,and most of all,first-class photography on actual Mancunian locations.This was something of a first for British crime thrillers for this period,which were mostly shot in dingy studio sets,but director Guest's decision to film many scenes outdoors,and in a provincial city as well(virtually all of this film's contemporaries were set in London,particularly Soho),is refreshing,fairly innovative and gives a sense of realism that is unusual but welcome,especially in this era(the late 50's -early 60's) of UK film-making.Unfortunately,there are some compromises that mitigate against the film;one is the casting of American John Crawford(who appeared in several other British thrillers around this period)as the murderous villain which strains credibility somewhat;Crawford makes no attempt to hide his American accent,which makes his role as a native(as the script makes clear) hard to take;there are rather obvious domestic scenes of strife with Inspector Stanley Baker and spouse that drag the pace down somewhat(it would have been better simply to concentrate on the basic story)and seem irrelevant,and Guest falters when he makes some obvious attempts to imitate Hollywood film-noirs;he is better when he sticks to straightforward,semi-documentary realism.The film features very few Mancunian actors (only John Comer,and Doris Speed,who very soon after began her stint as TV's most famous barmaid,Annie Walker,in CORONATION STREET);they are mostly from Yorkshire or Southern England,and Welshman Baker occasionally struggles with his Northern English accent. Never afraid to play unsympathetic,dislikable heroes,Baker is still good in the lead role,in his familiar virile,aggressive and uncompromising persona.This style of acting led the way out of the rather stuffy,RADA-accented manner that had held back British cinema for years into more a working-class,gritty and realistic era,and somewhat better films.HELL IS A CITY has it's faults,but is valuable today as an unexpected social document of Manchester of the time,and has much more than a touch of class than other contemporary routine crime dramas,thanks to the reasons stated above.Rating:6 and a half out of 10.

mb014f2908 I watched Hell is a City on DVD again the other day and was struck by how fresh and undated the story and acting still appears. It was a breakout Brit film for 1959/60- with its semi-documentary approach to police procedure,meshed with a tough on women approach and attempt to show relationships that don't have happy endings. On the DVD there is an alternate ending shown, which the director Val Guest claims to have no knowledge of at all! It's much weaker i think than Guest's own choice of ending. Stanley Baker is excellent; successfully showing all dimensions to an Inspector's working/personal life; Billie Whitelaw got nominated that year with the BAA for in the Newcomer category and deservedly so. All the support cast flesh out their characters' quirks very well. Actual location shooting (in this case-Manchester) was still quite unusual and there is a world of difference between this and a studio based crime thriller of maybe 10 years before.

bob the moo Inspector Harry Martineau is a hard-edged police man in gritty Manchester. When a major criminal, Don Stirling, escapes from jail by killing a guard Martineau makes it his person responsibility to hunt him down. Stirling gets his old gang together to steal £4000 from wealthy businessman Gus. However the theft goes wrong and a young girl is killed and the money begins to leave behind a trail that will lead to the gang.This desperately wants to be an English 1950's American style film noir. It has the gritty urban title, it has a moody lead actor with an iffy moral code, a pumping jazz soundtrack and is surprisingly tough. It isn't completely successful because of one main problem - it's in England. In Manchester. It's tough even for someone who lives here to take it as seriously as the Bogart-esque equivalents. It's an unfair criticism perhaps but it is off-putting to hear the thick Yorkshire accents in the setting of an urban crime drama.There is quite a lot to like here. The plot is interesting with gritty levels, the whole idea of the money being dyed and staining hands is a good concept and only seems stretched occasionally and is actually a very effective way of leaving a money trail. The jazz score does give the film a real feel of a urban crime zone, but at times it feels a bit out of place with some of the scenes.The 2 lead performances are mixed in their roles. Stanley Baker is good as Martineau mixing the role with a bad guy edge by being distant from his wife etc, but he isn't as convincing as his American equivalents. You never are totally convinced that he is anything but a good guy, with his only real faults being his commitment to work over his wife. John Crawford is better as Stirling who benefits from not having an English accent. He plays the violent, cruel criminal well and is totally convincing. It's also good to see Donald Pleasance in a small role as Gus, but his accent is frighteningly thick.The film is surprisingly tough. I assumed that this would be a lesser film because it's British but this has quite strong language (although not by today's standards) and is very violent considering when it was made. There is quite a bit of violence towards women all of which gives the film a much more believable very tough edge that adds to it's credentials as a crime thriller.Overall a strong attempt to make a British film noir. It loses something with Baker being too clean-cut in his role and the Manchester setting and accents are hard to line up mentally with the action. But hey - it's pretty good.