Cash on Demand (1961)

i must have seen a different film!!

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Having been a bank employee for a number of years now, I guess I have a subversive fondness for caper thrillers, especially those dealing with robberies from vaults and which generally involve hostages being taken. Although they have been known to happen locally even during my tenure, luckily I have never been subjected to one…although last year's mid-year attempt was quite a close call! Anyway, this renowned British example of this subgenre – atypically produced by Hammer Films for all of £37,000! – gives studio stalwarts Peter Cushing and Andre' Morell (formerly paired as adversaries in a famous 1953 TV adaptation of 1984 – that I have yet to watch! - and as celebrated duo of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in their atmospheric 1959 adaptation of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES) arguably the best non-horror roles they ever had during their stay at Bray Studios.Although the IMDb mistakenly gives the film as being a 1962 production and a mere 66 minutes in length, the truth of the matter is more complicated: its U.S. distributors Columbia released it over there as early as December 1961 but the movie would not be officially screened on its home-turf until October 1963; its running time, then, is actually 80 minutes! Based on an earlier TV episode of THEATRE 70 entitled GOLD INSIDE which also shared the same director and starred Morell but with one Richard Warner enacting the role later handled by Cushing. Indeed, the Christmas period during which the narrative is set and Cushing's own fastidious and glum character make this seem like a smart revisit of Dickens' Yuletide perennial about a certain cantankerous miser who goes by the name of Ebenezer Scrooge! Cushing, in fact, plays a strict and unloved manager of a small banking branch in the suburbs who is as distant and authoritarian with his staff as he seems to be with his wife and child. Morell is the at-once gentlemanly and ruthless thief who poses as an auditor from Head Office out to inspect this particular branch's security standards.The fact that a recent minor cash difference had just put a young teller (Barry Lowe) and the Chief Clerk (Richard Vernon) at loggerheads with their Manager only exacerbates the tension already present within the enclosed environment and ensures that a series of errors (i.e. security breaches) are committed that enable Morell's ease of entry into Cushing's office from which he will be conducting his cunning plan of filling up four suitcases (which he had Lowe bring back inside from his car parked outside!) with the bank's entire cash holding of £93,000 since there is a direct passage to the vault downstairs from there! This being the early 1960s, it still presents the old-fashioned picture of a branch manager holding one of the keys to the keys to the bank's strongroom with the other held by the Chief Clerk but that situation is all the more plausible for the film being set in a small branch. Morell tells Cushing that he had been planning the heist for a year and one is bound to believe him since he knows every little detail concerning not just the bank's security procedures but also its individual employees! In fact, some accomplices are apparently holding Cushing's family hostage and have orders to kill them if the appropriate signals are not given from Cushing's window. The plan goes smoothly for Morell (despite the occasional slip-up from a broken-down Cushing) but he has not reckoned with Norman Bird (as an eager-to-please bank employee who belatedly checks up on Morell's identity with Head Office) and Kevin Stoney (as an overzealous new Police Inspector in town)... Apart from the aforementioned stars and a handful of behind-the-scenes mainstays, most of the people involved in the film were not Hammer regulars; even so, it still emerges as one of their worthier straight efforts and is miles removed from even their other thrillers: the telephone sequence with Cushing and his 'family' and the sudden realization of Morell's true intent is more genuinely spine-tingling than anything out of the studio's more renowned chillers! Still, the miniscule budget ensured that no attempt is made to open-up the story (which would have justified this big-screen transposition!) but, on the other hand, this enables it to retain the inherent claustrophobia elicited by its one-set plot; one other quibble involves the finale, which could have been rendered in a more exciting manner! While Cushing's characterization is impressive (it was a pleasure to watch him crack under the strain and become recognizably humane – albeit still reservedly – towards his "subordinates") as always but Morell is a particular standout here (since he was rarely given the opportunity to play lead roles, notable exceptions being the original TV serial QUATERMASS AND THE PIT {1958} – later condensed for a movie remake by Hammer themselves but starring Andrew Keir{!} – and the company's sole foray into living-dead lore THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES {1966}) as the charming villain who can just as easily display his menace through the tone of his voice as the use of his hands. Interestingly, director Lawrence was the man behind the Hammer-esque sci-fi effort THE TROLLENBERG TERROR aka THE CRAWLING EYE (1958; which I just caught up with last year) and THE MAN WHO FINALLY DIED (1963; another thriller featuring Cushing that I have in my unwatched pile). For the record, having already acquired a mediocre-looking copy of the film some years back, I eventually upgraded to a vastly superior one sourced from Sony's barebones disc as part of their "Hammer Films: The Icons Of Suspense" 6-film 3-disc set.

I was going to give this film an 8, but when I thought about how inexpensively and expertly the movie was made, I really think it deserves a 9. This is a great case of a relatively simple plot made a whole lot better by wonderful acting and direction. In particular, André Morell plays a deliciously evil yet complex villain and Peter Cushing gives what is probably his best performance in his long career. As a result, it's well worth seeing--and a great example for film makers, as it proves you don't need a huge budget and complex sets to make a good film.The film is set in a bank. The manager (Cushing) is a humorless and exacting boss--very efficient but not one to inspire his employees' love or devotion. However you dislike the guy, though, you can't help but feel for him with what happens next. A guy who purports to be from the underwriter for the bank arrives and asks to meet with Cushing alone. The man (Morell) then announces that he is, in fact, a bank robber and that if Cushing does not cooperate, Cushing's wife and son will be tortured or killed. And, he provides a phone message with the scared wife to prove that he means business. What will happen next? Cushing IS a very efficient man, but he loves his family and can't let them be hurt.Throughout the film, I marveled at Cushing. The actor was known mostly for his horror films, but he appeared in gobs of movies--but never one that allowed him such an opportunity to emote like this. Cushing is very, very convincing as a scared and lonely man who feels trapped. It's too bad that many of his other roles were a bit one-dimensional and didn't let him demonstrate he was a heck of an actor. Morell is also quite good--but his smooth criminal doesn't provide him quite the same depth and opportunity as Cushing's. This is Cushing's film.An exciting plot, wonderfully written characters and great acting--what more could you ask for in a crime film?! See this one.

Two days before Christmas and all is not well in the bank. Austure, fastidious, and domineering bank manager Fordyce (the always superb Peter Cushing in top form) finds himself at the mercy of urbane and wily criminal Hepburn (marvelously played to the smooth and smug hilt by Andre Morell), who forces Fordyce to assist him with robbing his bank or else Fordyce's abducted wife and son will be severely hurt. Director Quentin Lawrence, working from a sharp and witty script by David T. Chantler and Lewis Greifer, ably milks the gripping story for maximum suspense and maintains a steady pace throughout. Lawrence downplays action in favor of focusing instead on tension and the shrewd bristling verbal sparring between the two principal characters. Moreover, this movie is essentially a clever thriller version of "A Christmas Carol," with the initially unlikable Fordyce becoming more and more sympathetic as he learns a much-needed albeit harrowing lesson in humility and thus regains his humanity while doing his best to stay calm and collected under intense pressure. Cushing and Morell do outstanding work in their roles. Richard Vernon likewise does well as kindly chief clerk Pearson. Both Arthur Grant's crisp black and white cinematography and Wilfred Josephs' shivery score are up to par. A real dandy sleeper.

This is a brilliant film! A psychological thriller and also a clever variation on A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Peter Cushing, in perhaps his best performances ever captured on film (along with THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN, FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL and the BBC play "1984"), plays an unsympathetic bank manager blackmailed into robbing his own bank by cunning gentleman-thief Andre Morell (in a rock solid performance). The great moment comes when Cushing who has bullied his staff all the time must beg them to help him cover up the robbery - if not, his family will be killed. I won't reveal more, it would spoil the fun.