Five Minutes to Live

1961 CrimeThriller 80 minutes Directed by Bill Karn

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About Five Minutes to Live

Fred Dorella recruits fugitive Johnny Cabot for a bank job in Camellia Gardens. Cabot learns his girlfriend Doris tipped the police and kills her. Posing as a door-to-door guitar teacher, he enters the house of bank officer Ken Wilson and holds Wilson's wife Nancy. At the bank Fred demands $70,000 and gives Ken five minutes: if the call does not come, Cabot shoots her. Ken, who has been planning to leave Nancy for another woman, first treats the threat as convenient, then breaks and hands over the money. While he waits, Cabot sings at Nancy and fires past her.

Cast & crew

More about Five Minutes to Live

Bill Karn directed. Cay Forrester wrote the screenplay from a story by Palmer Thompson and plays Nancy. James Ellsworth produced; her husband Ludlow Flower was executive producer. The working title was Door-to-Door Killer. World premiere in Richmond, Virginia, on November 21, 1960. Sutton Pictures and Astor handled the wider 1961 release. American International Pictures reissued it in November 1966 as Door-to-Door Maniac, cut to 74 minutes.

Themes

  • a five-minute deadline
  • a husband who hesitates to pay
  • a killer who sings to the hostage
  • bank ransom
  • hostage
  • Johnny Cash
  • door-to-door
  • suburban house

Making

Forrester wrote the part of the hostage for herself and brought Karn, a B-picture and television director, onto a small independent production.

Look

Carl E. Guthrie photographed it in black and white. Donald Nosseck edited.

Music

Cash sings "Five Minutes to Live" and "I've Come to Kill" on screen. Merle Travis plays the guitar solo on the title song.

Preservation

The 1966 American International cut runs 74 minutes under the title Door-to-Door Maniac.

Notes

  • Johnny Cash's first theatrical role. He plays Johnny Cabot and sings the title song.
  • Merle Travis plays the guitar solo on the title song and appears as Max.
  • Vic Tayback is Fred Dorella. Donald Woods is Ken Wilson. Pamela Mason is also billed.
  • Hollywood Reporter items place the premiere in late 1960 and the general release in 1961.

Scenes

  • Cabot, inside the Wilson house with a guitar, waits out the five minutes.
  • Ken tells Fred that losing Nancy would suit his plan to leave her.