Cash on Demand (1961)

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Peter Cushing and Andre Morell, paired a few years earlier in The Hound of the Baskervilles, re-team for Hammer Studios in Cash on Demand. Based on a stage play, this is largely a two-man show with Morell playing a charming but dangerous bank robber who forces Cushing, a bank manager, to help him abscond with over ninety-thousand pounds. Taking place in ‘real time’ two days before Christmas, Cash on Demand never leaves the bank setting. These kinds of claustrophobic play adaptations suffer in the translation to cinema, but this one is rescued by the stylings of Cushing and Morell. Morell is pleasantly devilish throughout. Cushing gets to show more of his range than he’s often allowed, starting off the movie as a Scrooge-like boss to his employees, only to be worn down to a nervous mess through Morell’s torturous manipulations. A couple of plot twists near the end keep things interesting as well.