Cash on Demand

Two days before Christmas, Harry Fordyce, the manager of a small-town bank, is treating his staff with his usual condescension. The man who walks in introduces himself as an insurance inspector. What he has actually come for is plain: he says he is holding the manager's family and wants the vault opened. For the next hour the bank keeps operating normally; customers come and go, the staff notice nothing. Quentin Lawrence's Hammer production makes good use of one confined space and one span of time. There is no violence, no chase; everything is in the conversation between two men. Peter Cushing moves Fordyce slowly from unpleasantness toward humanity, and André Morell plays courteous menace perfectly. The narrative openly leans on a Christmas structure, the Scrooge pattern. Who it's for: Viewers who like small-scale British thrillers, two-hander construction, and Peter Cushing. Who it's not for: There is almost no action, and the ending reaches its moral turn too fast. The scale is small; anyone here for a big heist film will not find one.