Hell's Five Hours / The Night Holds Terror

HELL’S FIVE HOURS, 1958, Paramount, 73 min. Dir. Jack L. Copeland. Vic Morrow, with a performance seemingly inspired from the bowels of a trailer park in a “Cops” rerun, goes maniacally postal on his ex-employer, a missile base that he intends to blow to kingdom come! The maddened Morrow pauses long enough to shanghai one of the original Dark City Dames, Coleen Gray, to make his resignation statement particularly deadly.

THE NIGHT HOLDS TERROR, 1955, Sony Repertory, 86 min. Dir. Andrew L. Stone. John Cassavetes and Vince Edwards effortlessly project a Charlie Starkweather-type menace as part of a trio holding middle-class, average American Jack Kelly and his family hostage in their suburban home. Based on a real-life hostage story that took place in 1953.