Intent to Kill (1958)

Undescribable Perfection

Powerful

Highly Overrated But Still Good

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

"Intent to Kill" is a really good suspense film which was made in Canada and has a very international cast. It is set at a hospital and a South American president (Herbert Lom) is scheduled to have some delicate brain surgery. However, somebody wants him dead and they've recruited a group of gangsters to make sure he doesn't leave the hospital alive. They make one attempt...and end up killing the wrong patient! But they are a very persistent and bloodthirsty lot and they won't stop until he's dead or they're all dead instead.The film works well because the writing was excellent and the director did a nice job of keeping the tension mounting. The ending, in particular, was very exciting and well worth the wait.

Taut thriller where a South American dictator, who was nearly assassinated,comes to Canada to face surgery after having seizures. Of course, there is a plot within Canada to finish him off. The guys involved in the plot have been hired by those against the man, and they have an inability to get along with each other.An interesting point in the film is the idea that the doctor, a very good Richard Todd, and the dictator, Herbert Lom, both are having marital difficulties. To add to the plot, the dictator's wife unknowingly is involved with an official from the embassy of their country who is involved in this new assassination plot.Alexander Knox, who was so good and robbed of an Oscar 14 years before in the memorable "Wilson," co-stars in this film as a Dr. Gillespie type-only he is realistic and is willing to take advice and follow through.The plot twists are excellent. Betsy Drake, who always seemed to mouth those lines with her throat, is great as the female doctor who Todd really loves. He is married to a status climbing woman who wants him to come to England where there is more money opportunities. He is a dedicated doctor who wants to stay where he is.The ending shooting spree in the hospital is exciting under excellent direction of Jack Cardiff.

This was legendary British cinematographer Cardiff's official directorial debut after his involvement in Errol Flynn's aborted pet project, THE STORY OF WILLIAM TELL in 1953. Although I have had to make do with a barely serviceable copy culled from a VHS-sourced transmission off of US TV channel "American Movie Classics", this is quite a good thriller that deserves rediscovery.While the plot is hardly original – being a rehash of STATE SECRET and CRISIS (both 1950) – the good cast and suspenseful narrative twists (courtesy of late screenwriter Jimmy Sangster) make for an enjoyably engrossing 90 minutes. Despite being a British production, it is mostly set in a Canadian hospital, where various attempts are made on the life of South American leader Herbert Lom (who had also appeared in the afore-mentioned STATE SECRET!) who has been admitted there, supposedly incognito, to undergo brain surgery. Among the surgeons operating on him are Richard Todd, Betsy Drake (then Mrs. Cary Grant, who was the star of CRISIS!) and Alexander Knox; on the other side of the spectrum are a hired trio of assassins: Warren Stevens, John Crawford (later the brutish gangster on the run in Hammer's HELL IS A CITY {1960}) and Peter Arne (who would himself graduate to playing notable villains).Thankfully, the tense interaction between the incompatible band of villains make up for the double helping of soap opera elements to be found in Todd's wife getting hysterically threatening after discovering his unspoken feelings for Drake and, consequently, his unwillingness to leave Canada for a better-paying job in London as a doctor to elite society; similarly, Lom's much-younger wife (Lisa Gastoni, here in her international phase prior to the actress' "Euro-Cult" heyday) is being pursued by Carlo Justini, a former beau and Lom's own two-faced (in more ways than one) lieutenant. Actually, Justini is the middleman between the hired killers and their employers but their plans go repeatedly awry because Stevens has to contend with boorish Crawford's penchant for partying and disgraced medico Arne's bundle of nerves and the palpable enmity between these two! The exciting climax sees Todd (ostensibly acting as lookout but actually romancing Drake) taking on the gun-toting Crawford in the hospital back-stairs and the convalescing and depressed (over his wife's suspected infidelity) Lom facing-off personally with Stevens – who had previously only acted as telephone diversion to Lom's attending nurse – in his room (via a gun ingeniously-hidden within the unlikeliest and most innocuous-looking of personal belongings on his bed-side table!); in the ensuing commotion, both Todd and a Canadian Mountie guarding the reception area are wounded.

Catch this one, if you can. The acting is not that good; but, there is some comic relief in the way th would-be assassins blunder everything! Also, Warren Stevens is a Great, great actor--and, I know he did a huge amount of work in TV, but what an underestimated actor!It is an American production, and they employed a lot of Local Canadian extras---Poor idea--Canadians probably "can" act; but not in this one.Keep an eye on Herbert Lom--Awesome! Carlo Giustini is a handsome Italian actor--but, again, not a very good actor, either.It is a little dramatic with the "wife" routine--sort of a la soap opera--but, If you find see this movie--I know you will love it.