This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Not even bad in a good way

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Kill Her Gently is a sub Hitchcockian British B thriller starring American Marc Lawrence who had escaped to Europe after being blacklisted for his political views in the 1950s.Two convicts break out of prison. Connors is an American and Svenson is a Swede. While on the run they are picked up by a motorist, Martin who realises who they are but helps them pass a police road block. Martin makes the a proposition to the fugitive. He will help them leave the country if in return they will kill his wife.It looks like Martin is more deranged than the convicts who has suffered a mental breakdown for which his wife had him sectioned and who also thinks she might be having an affair.Most of the film is set in the couple's home as Martin initially comes across as a victim with his wife. However the convicts become reluctant carrying out his task especially Svenson.This is a tight, short thriller but with a very rushed ending. Marc Lawrence impresses as a tough guy with a looming conscious. Griffith Jones is also memorable as the conniving, cunning and desperate husband who wants to punish his wife for having him incarcerated.

Griffith Jones, once a handsome leading man to Jessie Matthews in "First a Girl" (1936), twenty years later looked fit and distinguished as the husband who blames his wife for everything that has gone wrong in his life in "Kill Her Gently" - although there was nothing gently about it!!! But the movie belongs to Marc Lawrence. Black listed in the early 50s he had to go to Britain to find work and I don't know whether it is the different acting styles but he just subdues most of the other low key performers with the exception of Maureen Connell as the wife.Two escaped convicts (Lawrence and George Mikell) hail down a motorist (Jones) who willingly gives them a lift. Unbeknownst to them he knows who they are and has a proposition to make to them. In return for 1,000 pounds he wants them to kill his wife - Lawrence, in an earlier scene has clubbed a night watchman but his partner is not sold on violence. Arriving at the house the wife seems sensible and gentle but during the movie she also has a confession - her husband has just been discharged from a mental hospital and blames his wife for his incarceration. By now Lawrence realises that the husband is the most mixed up person in the house but he doesn't really care - he just wants the money.This is a very gripping and brutal film, especially in it's depiction of women. Connell is given a brutal beating by Lawrence who then proceeds to beat and kill the "au pair" when she does not give in to his advances and finally realises just who she has been flirting with. When Jones goes into a rage he is overheard by his wife who then begins to realise the awful truth, she in turn tries to phone the family doctor but is grappled before she can give her message. More suspense comes when Jones finds he has insufficient funds in the bank to withdraw the money, he then has the bright idea of selling his car - a big American convertible. He does sell it but Lawrence isn't very happy with a cheque. he wanted cash!!Who would have thought that 30 years after "Kill Her Gently" Marc Lawrence would still have been going strong - acting in Quentin Tarantino productions and putting the director in his place. There is a great interview with him in "Psychotronic" magazine (1999) and his comments about Tarantino are very telling today. The interviewer describes Lawrence as "theatrical, thoughtful, revealing, humorous, irritated, angry and very patient" - "You try going over your whole life when you're in your 80s"!!!!

I guess the only reason this movie is not a well-beloved classic is that it was not made in Hollywood, is filmed in black-and-white, came from a minor studio and is full of unknowns. I also don't understand why so many people who watched its TCM debut rated it so low. It is definitely the best movie I saw during their entire "detectives" month.The film starts out with Connors, an American, and Svenson, a Swede, escaping from prison. They are picked up hitchhiking by Jeff Martin. They become suspicious, though, when Martin gets them through a police roadblock, covering for them by claiming they are some friends of his that he has brought back from London to the rural area where the story transpires.It turns out Martin has plans for them. He makes a bargain with them to help them flee the country if they will assist him in his scheme. Otherwise, he will turn them in. They have little choice, and agree to go along with his plan before they even know what it is.But everything goes wrong with Martin's plan from the start. Bad breaks follow unfortunate coincidences in one unexpected plot twist after another, starting from the moment they get back to Martin's house and running all the way down to the penultimate scene.Eventually it comes out that Martin has a past, and when the escaped cons discover it, this creates another rift in the deteriorating trio.Both of the "bad guys" are really not so bad. Svenson especially is quite human, a rather sympathetic character. Of course, in spite of their increasing lack of enthusiasm for Martin's plan, the two of them have lived by the sword, and so are liable for the consequences. But each of them manages to achieve a small measure of redemption.Nothing is wasted in this movie. The plot unfolds with mounting tension at a rapid pace. Every moment in this rather short film is calculated, crafted, a necessary piece in the tension that is developed by a skillful combination of plot and direction. Hitchcock rarely did it better, and often did it worse.Even the final scene keeps in character with the movie, and does not fall into the mawkishness which would have been so easy, but rather ends up on a rather dark and somewhat ambiguous note.The building tension in this movie achieves what few movies ever have been able to do to me ("Lady In A Cage," "Dial M For Murder" and "Midnight Lace" spring to mind), keeping me riveted to the screen, and almost uncomfortable, squirming in my chair as I wait for the inevitable, which, in the greatest Hitchockian manner, does not come, but is whipped away by a surprising plot twist.Excellent suspense! Masterfully executed!

This is one of those tight, moody British crime thrillers of the 50s, one which just about lives up to its great title. Despite being set in a rural/suburban setting, the proceedings are imbued with the post-war brutality and seediness common to the genre, not to mention plenty of misogyny and xenophobia. The plot keeps moving and the atmospheric and psychological details are piled up at an equal pace, making this compelling viewing. Perhaps most telling is that the cultivated British middle class citizen proves far nastier than the "greasy" foreign criminals. The ending is a bit abrupt (possibly due to censorship or a cut TV print), but otherwise it plays all the angles perfectly. Marc Lawrence seems to have had a knack for finding neat little productions like this in which to participate.If you like this one, try "Man in the Back Seat", too.