When reading up for details on The Silent Partner and Think of a Number (1969-also reviewed) I found out about a earlier Hammer Noir with what sounded like a similar setting. Being very lucky to recently find Number with English subtitles,I was thrilled to find CoD in a Hammer Suspense box set I found on eBay, which demanded a viewing.
View on the film:
Setting the watch from the moment Hepburn enters the bank, director Quentin Lawrence & cinematographer Arthur Grant click a real-time Film Noir with masterful procession,drilling Hepburn's detailed outline of the heist plan he tells Fordyce with match cuts to Hepburn following a section of the plan,(such as Hepburn giving Fordyce orders to enact a part of it in 5 minutes, which then plays out 5 minutes later into the run-time.)
Not even offering humbugs to staff as a X-Mas gift, Lawrence superbly uses snow on the windows and winter clothes to enhance the icy Hammer Noir atmosphere, snowing it down in graceful long panning shots from the frosty window of Fordyce's "Chamber Piece" office to close-ups on Hepburn sitting in a chair keeping Fordyce walking on thin ice.
Banking on Jacques Gillies's original play, David T. Chantler and Lewis Greifer's adaptation wonderfully pays out to A Christmas Carol, as Fordyce tuts at each staff member getting into the holiday season, until he discovers the Christmas spirit himself, when it's all too late.
Giving his lone warm greeting to Hepburn due to how redefined he looks, the writers brilliantly turn Fordyce's beliefs inside out with cracking slow-burn Film Noir dialogue tearing the towering power he displays in front of his workers strip by strip, into the hands of the quietly confident, calculating Hepburn.
Spending the whole film with just one other person, Morell gives a incredibly layered turn as Hepburn. Rumbling in as a puffed-up little Colonel, Morell bursts the bubble with a striking underlying menaced, carried in Morell having Hepburn hand out orders and threats to Fordyce with a strict master thief professionalism. Spending almost the whole movie just with Morell, Peter Cushing gives a exceptional, measured turn as Fordyce, whose Scrooge complexities Cushing delicately unwinds to icy fear from Hepburn asking for cash on demand.
View on the film:
Setting the watch from the moment Hepburn enters the bank, director Quentin Lawrence & cinematographer Arthur Grant click a real-time Film Noir with masterful procession,drilling Hepburn's detailed outline of the heist plan he tells Fordyce with match cuts to Hepburn following a section of the plan,(such as Hepburn giving Fordyce orders to enact a part of it in 5 minutes, which then plays out 5 minutes later into the run-time.)
Not even offering humbugs to staff as a X-Mas gift, Lawrence superbly uses snow on the windows and winter clothes to enhance the icy Hammer Noir atmosphere, snowing it down in graceful long panning shots from the frosty window of Fordyce's "Chamber Piece" office to close-ups on Hepburn sitting in a chair keeping Fordyce walking on thin ice.
Banking on Jacques Gillies's original play, David T. Chantler and Lewis Greifer's adaptation wonderfully pays out to A Christmas Carol, as Fordyce tuts at each staff member getting into the holiday season, until he discovers the Christmas spirit himself, when it's all too late.
Giving his lone warm greeting to Hepburn due to how redefined he looks, the writers brilliantly turn Fordyce's beliefs inside out with cracking slow-burn Film Noir dialogue tearing the towering power he displays in front of his workers strip by strip, into the hands of the quietly confident, calculating Hepburn.
Spending the whole film with just one other person, Morell gives a incredibly layered turn as Hepburn. Rumbling in as a puffed-up little Colonel, Morell bursts the bubble with a striking underlying menaced, carried in Morell having Hepburn hand out orders and threats to Fordyce with a strict master thief professionalism. Spending almost the whole movie just with Morell, Peter Cushing gives a exceptional, measured turn as Fordyce, whose Scrooge complexities Cushing delicately unwinds to icy fear from Hepburn asking for cash on demand.