Sometimes being an acclaimed actor and a popular box office star does not guarantee that all of your film ventures will be successful. Take, for example, Intent to Kill (1958), a suspense thriller, that cast Richard Todd in the starring role as a physician who is slated to perform brain surgery on the incognito president of a South American country. Todd did not want to do the film for Fox - he owned them one more picture on his contract. Instead he wanted to make a movie for British director Ken Hughes entitled The Men from Moscow (it was never made). Unfortunately, his friend Darryl Zanuck was no longer in charge of production at Fox and Zanuck's successor, Spyros Skouras, insisted that Todd fulfill his obligations and made Intent to Kill.

Todd was at the peak of his career in 1958, having recently appeared in The Virgin Queen (1955) opposite Bette Davis, the war epic D-Day the Sixth of June (1956), and the mystery thriller, Chase a Crooked Shadow (1958) with Anne Baxter. He had also made quite a strong impression in his first U.S. feature in 1949 - The Hasty Heart; a role that won him an Oscar® nomination for Best Actor. Yet, unlike most top box office stars today, actors during Todd's era were bound to studio contracts and had to honor them unless they were prepared to make costly settlements to get out of their commitments. And Todd was no exception.

Certainly the basic premise of Intent to Kill is quite intriguing. Juan Menda (Herbert Lom), a populist president from an undisclosed South American country, has arrived in Montreal for a brain operation to remove a bullet from an earlier assassination attempt. Unfortunately, three conspirators have tracked Menda, his wife (Lisa Gastoni) and personal aide (Carlo Giustini) to their wintry destination with plans to finish the job they started. When a patient who is accidentally mistaken for Menda is killed with a lethal injection, Dr. Bob McLaurin (Todd) begins to suspect the worst and takes steps to protect his patient. But can he outwit the anonymous assassins?

In his autobiography, In Camera, Todd proclaimed Intent to Kill "a stinker" and added, "It was a melodramatic, unbelievable thriller....and had all the merits of a run-of-the-mill TV drama." However, the movie did provide the celebrated cinematographer Jack Cardiff with his feature film directorial debut. Todd noted, "Jack, one of the greatest cinematographers in the world, had always been keen to direct and was a really sweet man; it was a pity that he had been landed with such a poor subject. However, he did his best with it and was a dear to work with." Todd also added, "My leading lady in Intent to Kill was Betsy Drake, ex-wife of Cary Grant, who was somewhat withdrawn and reserved. I don't think I ever saw her outside the studios."

Unlike Todd, Cardiff thoroughly enjoyed making Intent to Kill. In a conversation with interviewer Justin Bowyer on the making of the movie, he recalled, "I think we were using Mitchell cameras. I had a lot of ideas scenically for Intent to Kill, but I didn't bother myself too much with lighting. Looking back on it, it's quite possible that most of the crew was hired because they were quite cheap. I didn't realize that at the time - I was just happy to go on the floor and direct the film. The unit was extremely good...As a director I was more concerned with the script and the actors and whatever. It was not an easy subject and we had to go to Canada on location...It did have some good reviews. It didn't become a smash hit but it was interesting."

Viewers will have to decide for themselves whether Intent to Kill succeeds as a suspense thriller but many reviewers of its day found it a satisfying entertainment. Howard Thompson of The New York Times gave it a mixed review but found things to admire: "INTENT TO KILL, a British-made suspense drama, is interesting on two counts. It has excellent black-and-white photography by one of the screen's masters of color, Jack Cardiff. And it has the ingredients for a dandy thriller. But it squanders these ingredients, mainly because of a dawdling, unimaginative script.....As the picture opens, some excellent tightly woven scenes promise one of those smooth tinglers unfolding in antiseptic, white corridors. (Britain's Green for Danger [1946], beats this one by a good ten miles.) Unfortunately, Jimmy Sangster, who adapted Michael Bryan's novel of the same title, has chosen the easy way out, loosening the tension with a welter of overstated detail and all but severing it with the human element."

Some additional trivia: Jackie Collins, the younger sister of Joan Collins and better known as a bestselling novelist (The Bitch, The Stud, The World Is Full of Married Men), has a supporting role in Intent to Kill and the cinematographer on the film is Desmond Dickinson; his screen credits include such British classics as Hamlet (1948), The Browning Version (1951) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1952). In addition, screenwriter Jimmy Sangster is a familiar name to Hammer Horror fans, having penned the scripts for such popular British horror films as The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Horror of Dracula (1958) and The Mummy (1959).

Producer: Adrian D. Worker
Director: Jack Cardiff
Screenplay: Jimmy Sangster
Cinematography: Desmond Dickinson
Music: Kenneth V. Jones
Film Editing: Tom Simpson
Cast: Richard Todd (Dr. Bob McLaurin), Betsy Drake (Dr. Nancy Ferguson), Herbert Lom (Juan Menda), Warren Stevens (Finch), Carlo Giustini (Francisco Flores), Paul Carpenter (O'Brien), Alexander Knox (Dr. McNeil), Lisa Gastoni (Carla Menda), Peter Arne (Kral), Catherine Boyle (Margaret McLaurin).
BW-88m.

by Jeff Stafford

Sources:
In Camera: An Autobiography Continued by Richard Todd (Hutchinson)
Conversations with Jack Cardiff by Justin Bowyer (Batsford)
IMDB