What a waste of my time!!!

Highly Overrated But Still Good

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Terror Street (AKA: 36 Hours) is directed by Montgomery Tully and written by Steve Fisher. It stars Dan Duryea, Elsy Albiin, Ann Gudrun, John Chandos and Eric Pohlmann. Music is by Ivor Slaney and cinematography by Walter Harvey. Plot finds Duryea as Major William Rogers, who is in London to see his estranged wife. When he arrives at her apartment, he is attacked and knocked unconscious. Upon awakening he finds that his wife has been shot and killed with his own gun. Taking to the streets, Rogers must find the real culprits before the police find and charge him with the murder.Simple and effective little B crime picture out of Hammer Productions that plays on the wrong man on the run theme. There's the odd little film noir touch here and there on the production side of things (night time wet cobbled streets/Duryea under a street lamp/finale in swinging shadow), which somehow warrants it being part of the Hammer Film Noir Collection, but really it's best to approach this one as purely a race against time drama that is competently acted (though the script rarely allows Duryea chance to brood and be emotionally battered), well paced and a film that retains a good mystery element throughout. Safe viewing and film making really. 6/10

Despite its bad press, "36 Hours" (1953) is not a total write-off. True, Dan Duryea is miscast as hero rather than villain and the girls are not much to write home about. But it's beautifully photographed by "Heads" Harvey (called "Heads" because of his fondness for placing the top of the actors' heads right against the frame line) and directed with a surprising amount of style by Montgomery Tully. The support cast lines up as one of the most solid assembled by Hammer with Eric Pohlmann and John Chandos as the heavies, Russell Napier and Michael Golden as detectives, Kenneth Griffith as the psycho, Lee Patterson in a tiny role as the co-pilot, and best of all, Harold Lang as the desk clerk.

This was apparently made as some sort of joint effort between Hammer studios and American producer Robert Lippert. The film was clearly made just to make money, and it shows as it's a disjointed effort with a torrid and derivative script and not much to recommend it for. The plot of Terror Street focuses on an American pilot. He is married to a Norwegian girl, and decides to make an unauthorised trip to the UK to see her (because apparently, American/Norwegian couples live in England). He is surprised upon his return to find she has found a new and glamorous lifestyle, but he is then hit on the head and wakes up to find his girl dead. He than has just thirty sex hours to prove he didn't do it. The plot certainly has plenty of room to be an entertaining thriller, but this is never capitalised on. Lead actor Dan Duryea is good enough, but never really made me care about his character or plight. The film really lacks any interesting set pieces or situations as well, and I have to admit I lost interest long before the end. Overall, I wouldn't recommend tracking this film down to either Hammer fans or Noir fans!

Dan Duryea looked his age (46) when he made this Brit noir in 1953. The bags under the eyes aren't disguised. There are wrinkles on his forehead and creases around his mouth. Those wrinkles and creases, and his skill as an actor, are among the best things about this workmanlike film. Duryea was a fine, interesting actor, with in some movies a kind of sleazy menace and in others a puzzled sincerity. In Terror Street he raises our expectations every time he's on camera. As Major Bill Rogers, a U. S. Air Force pilot, he's hitched a ride from the States on a military plane so he can talk to his unhappy wife, Katie. When he shows up at their apartment in London, she's missing. Finally he locates her new apartment. She shows up but before they can talk he's knocked unconscious. When he comes to he finds her lying beside him dead, shot with bullets from his gun. He has 36 hours to find the killer; he must be back at the air-base for his return flight. The conclusion is strictly standard fare for cheaply produced noirs, but getting there is surprisingly rewarding. In Terror Street, Dan Duryea isn't just one more B-noir tough guy hero. He's distraught that his wife apparently left him while he was gone for a year. For most of the movie he's unsure of himself, unsure of what his wife was doing, unsure of why she would have been killed and unsure if in fact she had ever loved him. Only until the last quarter of the movie, when the script requires him to do tough guy things, does his performance begin to look routine. Unusual in these low-grade noirs, there are several other performances where the quality shines. Ann Gudrin plays Jenny Miller, the smart young woman who runs a mission and who helps Bill. Very subtly, Gudrin let's us see that Miller's feelings, carefully proper, may be moving in ways that surprise her. Eric Pohlman plays a suave antiques dealer with debonaire assurance. But at least at the end the bad guys have paid the price, Katie's reputation is restored even if she isn't and, while Bill heads back to the States, we find a hint that he plans to stay in contact with Jenny. She smiles. So do we. They'd make a good match.