MartinHafer This film is also known by the title "Door to Door Maniac"--a title I much prefer.Over the years, Johnny Cash had several opportunities to act as well as his own television show. However, back in 1961 he was definitely NOT an actor...and it shows. In fact, I really think this film would have been a lot better without him. Part of it is because his grumpy, brooding criminal routine is very one-dimensional (much like Elvis' in "Jailhouse Rock"). Additionally, they had Cash break into song in a very contrived manner. Imagine...Cash playing a cold- blooded assassin who just starts singing for no particular reason! The film involves two low-lifes, Johnny (Cash) and Fred (Vic Tayback) pulling off a big crime. Fred's been watching the Wilson family for some time and now it's time for Johnny to go to work. Johnny kidnaps the missus and holds her hostage in the home...and forces her to listen to him sing! As for Fred, he informs her husband, the bank president, to withdraw $70,000 or his wife is history. The problem the criminals don't realize is that the man is about to leave his wife for another woman!! So will he just call their bluff? And what's going to happen to the wife?Johnny Cash's performance sure ain't subtle...but it is, at times, entertaining...especially when he destroys the lady's home just for kicks or seems to be on the verge of molesting the woman. He's quite the sadist. But he never is particularly believable and the story has many very familiar story elements...things I've seen in many films such as "Ransom!", "The Desperate Hours", "Bone" (it's a LOT like that one) and even, believe it or not, "Ruthless People". It's interesting that in such a trashy film that there's also a small role for little Ronnie Howard...after he was ALREADY a regular on "The Andy Griffith Show"...and you'd think his folks would have held out for better projects than this one!

Wizard-8 I am pretty confident that most viewers will find the basic plot of "Five Minutes to Live" (a.k.a. "Door To Door Maniac") pretty familiar - it's been done many times on TV and in other movies. But I didn't mind the familiarity too much, since in the right hands the formula can still be effective. Unfortunately, this retelling was not done with the right hands. It's a pretty poorly plotted retelling, for one thing. There are a few promising ideas here (one taken from an O. Henry short story), but the movie doesn't take these ideas to too much of an extreme. Also, it takes almost 40% of the movie before the hostage is taken hostage, and then it takes forever for the actual robbery to start being executed. Maybe this wouldn't be too bad had there been some suspense along the journey, but there is precious little, one reason being that Johnny Cash (in his motion picture debut) isn't very good as the hostage taker. His performance wavers all over the place, suggesting that the director didn't give him that much steady direction. Cash's acting did improve in subsequent years, so if you are a Cash fan, I would suggest you look at one of his later acting roles instead of this cheap and tacky outing.

classicsoncall Before making "Five Minutes to Live", Johnny Cash's only prior film credits included a handful of TV Western guest appearances. On the flip side, seven year old Ron Howard, billed here as Ronnie, already had a pretty extensive career spanning five years. I don't think any of this really matters as far as the picture goes, but I like getting into this kind of trivia.What you have here is the makings of a cult classic, but up until today I had never heard of it. It's packaged as one of two hundred fifty films as part of the Mill Creek Mystery Collection, and as my habit goes, I pick the flicks to watch at random. I'm well past the half way mark by now and never noticed Johnny Cash's name on any of the DVD sleeves or I would have put this at the head of the line. After watching it though, it might just as well stay at the back of the pack.Well, to be fair, if you're a Johnny Cash fan, you'll want to catch this little gem, but for all the wrong reasons. His performance here is maniacally sadistic, juxtaposed with occasional riffs on his guitar belting out lines from the title song. It's all kind of surreal in it's own way, and perhaps there was a method to the madness of Cash cashing in on his growing celebrity status as a country singer. Otherwise I wouldn't get this at all.The single plot element that really could have taken this film over the top was the idea that bank president Wilson (Donald Woods) was OK with ex-con Fred Dorella (Vic Tayback) having his wife killed if he didn't fork over seventy grand. That whole story line went down the drain well before it had to, and it would have been much more interesting if Wilson told Dorella to just go ahead. And by the way, why go through the pretense of having Wilson cash Dorella's check - he was robbing the bank!!! Anyway, it looks like most of the posters on this board had a fine time with the flick so I don't want to throw any more cold water on it. You'll have to see it and judge for yourself. For my money, it was worth the proportional price I paid for the Mill Creek box set, which would have pegged it at about twenty cents. If you do catch the film, pay attention when the bowling alley owner Max (Merle Travis) encounters Tayback's character early in the story and orders him up a 'club and soda' - wouldn't that just be a plain club soda?

Tom Willett (yonhope) Hi, I'm Johnny Cashless. I need to make a quick buck and I have a guitar that Merle Travis actually plays while they show my hands which are really Merle's finger pickin' hands. Got it so far? Oh, and I have a gun with a silencer but it makes a big noise when I shoot it.Merle Travis and Johnny Cash are both country music legends who appear here as actors. They act like they are acting. Dolly Parton was too young and Minnie Pearl was busy with a function at Grinder's Switch so they got some blonde who looks like Barbara Billingsley to be the female lead who also has to pretend to act.Good cast with Vic Taybeck thrown in. He is OK as a sleasey guy. Ronnie Howard does a good job. The old dinosaur who plays the bank guard is a believable character. There's also a dark haired other woman, who I guess is either Pamela Mason or Tiny Tim or Raymond Burr. She looks a lot like Jack Lemmon did in Some Like it Hot but she is less desirable, of course.The plot is a basic bank robbery gone wrong/telephone/nice '60s cars type of chowder served with a fur covered negligee and some broken statuettes. If it were not for the great names in the cast this one would have disappeared altogether like many other fun films that gave us a look at the technology and attitudes of 50 years ago.The only thing I missed seeing here was a revolving door at the bank. That is always a great place for a shootout.The title song is so bad even Johnny Cash can't save it. The song could be done worse by Wayne Newton or Dinah Shore, but it really kills any popcorn appetite you might have brought into your viewing room.Other than that it was OK and I did watch it for free so I am not complaining. I want to watch it again after I have watched every other movie that has ever been made.Johnny Cash did do some other acting roles where he was pretty good. Many pop singers became good actors such as Bobby Darin and John Denver and Burl Ives.