Intent to Kill

Jack Cardiff does a good job in his directorial debut, 1958's Intent to Kill, starring Richard Todd, Herbert Lom, Betsy Drake, Warren Stevens, and Lisa Gastoni. Lom plays a South American leader who has entered a Canadian hospital under the name of Martin; however, that doesn't stop a group of assassins, headed by Warren Stevens, from getting the details of his stay and trying to assassinate him. The goal is to have the doctor in their gang inject him with an air bubble. It doesn't quite work out as they hoped.

Richard Todd plays his doctor, Dr. McLaurin, an unhappily married man who is in love (platonically for the moment) with a nurse, Nancy Ferguson (Betsy Drake).

Though this is a British film, it's set in a hospital in Canada, and is reminiscent of the film Crisis, which starred Cary Grant. The acting is good, particularly from Lom, and the camera work, no surprise, is interesting.

The best scenes in this film, in my opinion, occur at the end, when there is a confrontation on a staircase, an intense and exciting scene, very well done.

Entertaining with some nice twists and good elements.

A south american president arrives in Canada for brain surgery, but murderers plot the perfect crime. First movie directed by the great director of photography Jack Cardiff ("Under Capricorn", "Black Narcissus", "Pandora and the Flying Dutchman", "The Barefoot Contessa", "The Vikings", ...), "Intent to Kill" is competently directed with good casting but with nothing exceptional except the ending which is an explosive editing must see. The photography is rather realistic with full light (except in few scenes), far from Cardiff's masterpieces as a cinematographer.

The parallels with the MGM film Crisis that starred Cary Grant and Jose Ferrer about a South American dictator having an operation are too obvious to ignore in reviewing Intent To Kill.

The big difference is that while Jose Ferrer had the operation done by a visiting Dr. Cary Grant in Intent To Kill, Herbert Lom comes up from South America and checks into a Montreal hospital to have the operation done by Dr. Richard Todd.

Unfortunately following him are a party of assassins led by American hit man Warren Stevens. They make a couple of tries at Lom.

Unlike Crisis where we go into the type of regime that Ferrer leads and Ferrer is one very thinly disguised portrait of Juan Peron, we never get into why Lom is disliked enough to have assassins trailing him. And for Stevens it's just another contract.

The climax is a real thriller with Todd and nurse Betsy Drake battling the killers. Jack Cardiff made his directorial debut here. We mostly associate Cardiff with bigger budget items and technicolor. But he handled this black and white noir film well indeed.

It would be good to see Intent To Kill and Crisi run back to back.

Richard Todd plays a surgeon called on to operate on President Lom whilst trying to keep a grip on his domestic affairs.His wife being played by Euro vision hostess Katie Boyle who shows why she retired from acting.The writers making it more exciting by avoiding the obvious so that Lom is only guarded by one detective,giving open season for the assassins.

Catch this one, if you can. The acting is not that good; but, there is some comic relief in the way th would-be assassins blunder everything! Also, Warren Stevens is a Great, great actor--and, I know he did a huge amount of work in TV, but what an underestimated actor!

It is an American production, and they employed a lot of Local Canadian extras---Poor idea--Canadians probably "can" act; but not in this one.

Keep an eye on Herbert Lom--Awesome! Carlo Giustini is a handsome Italian actor--but, again, not a very good actor, either.

It is a little dramatic with the "wife" routine--sort of a la soap opera--but, If you find see this movie--I know you will love it.