Count the Hours!

Surprisingly interesting story for a B picture from the early fifties - this could have been made as a major feature if it was given a bigger budget and a director worthy of its plot developments. Sincere performances by Teresa Wright and McDonald Cary are well above the average but director Don Siegel is just not the right man for the job. The story by Doane Hoag has all the right twists and turns and holds the interest but needed more attention to detail and less clichéd handling. The music score was certainly different but seemed to have been lifted from a Si-Fi -'body snatcher' type movie.

If looking for a 50s time passer (with undeveloped possibilities) this is still worth a look. Prolific and inventive Award winning Hungarian cinematographer John Alton shows terrific flair for B/W photography and lighting - lifting this little crime meller to above average standards. The ending is typical of the era - but, still better than many other average B pictures.

MacDonald Carey stars as an Atticus Finch like attorney in Count The Hours where he's asked to defend George Craven who is accused of killing an elderly rancher and his wife. From the reactions around the town the two were beloved in the community and everyone just wants to hang Craven and be quick about it.

His defense of Craven puts Carey's own relationship with rich girl friend Dolores Moran in jeopardy. And he's certainly not winning any popularity contest defending Craven. Still Carey soldiers on until the truth emerges.

Don Siegel got some beautiful performances from several of his cast members. First Teresa Wright as Craven's wife who is the picture of innocence. Her innocence makes you the audience as well as Carey believe in the rightness of the cause. Also Adele Mara poaches on what is usually Gloria Grahame territory. She plays a real low life white trash slut and she does it magnificently.

Finally though there's Jack Elam who was a former hand at the deceased's place and he's a former mental patient. That blind eye of Elam's served him so well in films he could play some really loony characters. Elam is at his bug-eyed best in this part.

It's sad that Don Siegel did not have a bigger budget to work with. As it is Count The Hours is a real noir classic and Carey's Dave Madison belongs right up there with Atticus Finch in the pantheon of film's incorruptible men of the law.

This is far from the best Don Siegel movie. But, despite flaws in writing and acting, it's gripping and moves along, keeping the viewer on the edge of his or her seat.

Nothing is really credible. Theresa Wright as an itinerant farmer's wife? Actors with pronounced New York accents as menacing rednecks? And something about the script seems truly sub-par. The dialogue is not grammatical and this is not a matter of simulating regional speech or signifying class. The dialogue is just not well written.

The music, too, is strangely self-contradictory. At first it is pure schmalz, and Don Siegel is not the man for romance, even if it's romantic noir. Then a theramon is introduced and it sounds better.

Despite quibbling on my part, it's an engrossing movie. Believable? Not exactly. But, if one cuts it some considerable slack, it works well as a suspenseful kind-of noir.

Count the Hours (AKA: Every Minute Counts) is directed by Don Siegel and written by Karen DeWolf and Doane R. Hoag. It stars Macdonald Carey, Teresa Wright, John Craven, Jack Elam, Dolores Moran, Adele Mara and Edgar Barrier. Music is by Louis Forbes and cinematography by John Alton.

When a farmer and his housekeeper are murdered, suspicion falls on the hired hand George Braden (Craven). Owning a gun that matches the bullets used in the killings, Braden and his wife Ellen (Wright) are taken in for questioning when Ellen panics and is seen to throw the weapon into a lake. Under pressure and wanting to free his wife from duress, Braden confesses to the crime and finds himself on trial for his life. Enter Doug Maddison (Carey), a local lawyer who comes to believe that Braden is innocent and faces a fight against the clock to save Braden from the hangman's noose.

The pairing of Don Siegel and John Alton alerts the noir crowd to this compact low budget race against the clock thriller. In truth it's standard fare on a plot basis, with a mixed bag of acting performances (Elam and Wright exempt) and poor use of the Theramin in the musical score (it telegraphs what we should expect and feels on this occasion it's in the wrong movie), but within simplicity of story also comes potent points of worth.

As the clock ticks down and the stakes are raised, Siegel and the writers slot in the distasteful workings of the human being. Not only is there the running theme of the law quite frankly being an ass, but there is the bite of the rumour mill, a man forcing himself on to a desperate woman (Siegel zooms in for an emphasised facial shot that is bone chilling) and psychiatry playing a judicial hand; and not a good one at that!

Then there is Alton bringing his photographic tricks to compliment Siegel's efforts to lift a standard screenplay to greater things. Angular shots feature but it's with shadows and light that Alton excels, none more so than with the prison sequences. Here is where a frantic Braden is being held and it is a caged hell, because Alton highlights the shadows from the bars on the doors and windows as well, there is no escape from bars, they literally are all around, with one shot showing Alton at his best.

It's little seen and most likely forgotten about, and certainly its qualities have been ignored by the none film noir loving crowd, yet this is well worth a peek for those film lovers who like trawling the back alleyways for Siegel and Alton peccadilloes. 7.5/10

Despite the economical running time, very much more of this unexceptional movie may well have felt like counting the hours as the finale approached.

Opening as a spine tingling creepshow, rapidly followed by gunfire and a double murder, 'Count the Hours' soon settles upon a pedestrian plateau as John Craven desperately pleads innocent of any crime, his case seriously damaged when panic stricken wife, Teresa Wright disposes of his gun in a nearby lake. The ensuing, protracted courtroom scene does little to reignite the adrenaline levels.

Sceptical, inexperienced lawyer, MacDonald Carey, is initially unwilling to take the case, until he spots Wright risking life and limb, repeatedly diving as she attempts to retrieve the gun. Carey is also confronted by the prevailing small town ethos (even evident amongst all the fun and games of My Cousin Vinny) in which everybody knows everybody else and nobody knows anybody who would ever do anything to hurt anyone.....Does that make sense? Therefore, Craven and Wright tick all the boxes as drifters, out- of- towners, new kids on the block, who simply MUST be guilty!

It's all rapidly rolling into the realms of rigmarole, until a much needed shot in the arm arrives in the form of loopy local loony, Jack Elam and his kooky, money grabbing, gold digging moll, Adele Mara. A femme fatale failure, whose feminine wiles fall foul of the unpredictable Elam and the reputable Carey.

'Count the Hours' has its moments, it's worth the time, but hardly the film noir fireball it promises to be at the start. Elam and Mara largely steal the show, well supported by the endearingly sincere, guilt ridden Wright. In contrast, neither Carey nor Craven radiate any significant on screen charisma, while Dolores Moran is serviceable as the bride to be. The movie always struggles to maintain momentum following its Wham-Bam-Thankyou-Mam launch. Perhaps it's just a bit too obvious, right down to Elam's name in the opening credits. Could you REALLY imagine him as a doting, favourite uncle, or the kindly family doctor?