Five Miles to Midnight (1963)

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Anthony Perkins does an effective almost like continuation of the Norman Bates character in this 1962 film. Sophia Loren is equally effective doing a Norma Desmond crack-up like character in the film as well.Misdeed comes to the unhappily married couple when the plane Perkins is flying on crashes and he is thrown from the plane and survives. No one has to notice that so he literally returns from the dead and plots with Loren to get the insurance money. He promises her her freedom from him, only to go back on his word when she finally gets the money by saying that after all she lied and signed papers to get the money.Gig Young is the reporter she meets earlier after he takes over the apartment of Jean Pierre Aumont who is fortunate enough to exit this film quite early.Everyone is dancing about twisting in the era of the twist and there is that obnoxious little boy, a neighbor from quite the way, who sees Perkins and tries to be his friend.

Tony Perkins, fresh off of "Psycho," isn't Norman Bates, but he's damned close. His eccentric, childish persona really made me nervous. I forgot what a looker Sophia Loren was. I remember her later when she had put on so much weight. Anyway, she has to deal with Perkins and his idiotic moods. He's violent and a bully, so she is stuck. Imagine the relief when she thinks he is dead. But then he shows up and ruins her life. Gig Young comes to investigate and she must carry with her all these secrets of bilking the insurance company. It's a really uncomfortable film to watch. Perkins is way too much here and that kind of ruins it for me. But there is some morality at work here.

Rather pedestrian, generally slow, and, as others have succinctly noted, very miscast "thriller" about a husband surviving a plane crash and forcing his estranged, unhappy wife into acting like he is dead in order to cash in the huge insurance settlement. Tony Perkins plays the mean, horrible husband - and there are times when his boyish looks and behaviours actually come off as somewhat convincing but more often as not he just seems not up to the part. Sophia Loren - wildly miscast as the downtrodden wife and the wife of this guy to boot. She opens the film doing what has to be the best version of the Twist I have ever seen(she is lovely, absolutely lovely!). But Loren is given really very little to do and she looks so disinterested throughout most of the film until she has some climatic scenes at the end and overacts. There is little thriller here at all - mostly Loren looking unhappy and Perkins smiling and trying to be shocking. Huhhhhh! Sorry I was stifling a yawn. Gig Young, again miscast, plays some former police detective leering at Loren throughout and getting in so to speak to the Italian Zone in Paris. The Parisian backdrops and even the French-themed music are rather nice but I saw the ending coming well before the five mile marker and way before midnight.

Anthony Perkins is not exactly the abusive husband type (especially to an ever-beautiful Sophia Loren). Add to it the plot elements of master-minding an insurance fraud, and the odds of good-natured Perkins pulling it off become immeasurable.The sole survivor of a plane crash, Perkins was fortunate to have taken out a special insurance policy (even if the odds of dying in a crash were 1 in 1,000,000). Good wife Loren, already prepared for widowhood by the "news", gets a good shock when Perkins shows up, pressuring Loren to play along with the hoax to collect the insurance money.Although the ending is somewhat of a surprise, the time spent getting there seems like an endless and tiresome walk through the woods, only to arrive at a run down greasy spoon as a reward. Without any frills or glamour, even shot in b&w, this is a less than average vehicle for either of the stars. Look for a young Tommy Norden (of TV's "Flipper" Fame) in a minor role. Otherwise, skip it altogether!**