Hell Is a City

Don Starling escapes from prison and comes back to Manchester. He gathers his old men and plans to rob a courier carrying a bookmaker's money. During the robbery a young woman with them dies and the job becomes murder. Detective Inspector Martineau takes the case. The two of them grew up in the same neighbourhood and Martineau knows better than anyone where the man will go; the problem is not finding him but catching him. The source is Maurice Procter's novel. Val Guest directed, and the film is one of the Hammer studio's works outside horror. Its real difference is where it was shot: on the real streets of Manchester and among real factories, at a time when most British crime films were made in a studio. Stanley Baker plays the inspector; Donald Pleasence and Billie Whitelaw are also in the cast. Ninety-eight minutes. The story shows the policeman too as an unhappy man once he goes home.