Five Minutes to Live
Five Minutes to Live

Watch Five Minutes to Live Online Free

- 55/100 based on 952 votes
  • Released: 1961
  • Runtime: 73 mins
  • Director:
  • Studio: American International Pictures
  • Genres: Thriller - Crime

CONTAINS SPOILERS Originally released in 1961 as Five Minutes to Live, this low-budget crime drama was later re-released as Door-to-Door Maniac. Fred narrates the film in flashback, detailing a suburban bank robbery that goes awry. In his simple plan, he hires a hard-up hood, Johnny Cabot to take the wife of the bank's vice president hostage. Cabot will hold her until he gets a call alerting him that Fred has been successful in getting ransom money. Cabot waits, and watches t... (Full plot summary below)

Watch MOVIES for FREE on Prime Video

Enjoy FREE movies and series with your Prime (USA) subscription or when you start a 30-day free trial!

Share this

Five Minutes to Live Online Streaming

Links compiled using automated software. Availability of offers subject to change / might be region specific / out of date.

Rent Five Minutes to Live on DVD

Rent Five Minutes to Live on Blu-ray

Today's Featured Movies:

The Girl with the Dragon TattooThe Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The RingThe Ring
Phone BoothPhone Booth
Rear WindowRear Window
The WrestlerThe Wrestler
For a Few Dollars MoreFor a Few Dollars More
VertigoVertigo
UnbreakableUnbreakable
SignsSigns
Tropic ThunderTropic Thunder
This Means WarThis Means War
AlienAlien
The ApartmentThe Apartment
The LighthouseThe Lighthouse
The Usual SuspectsThe Usual Suspects
Underworld: EvolutionUnderworld: Evolution

You Might Also Like:

Dog Day AfternoonDog Day Afternoon
SleuthSleuth
SommersbySommersby
Prizzi's HonorPrizzi's Honor
Guitar Men: The Darkest Secret of Rock 'n RollGuitar Men: The Darkest Secret of Rock 'n Roll
The HeistThe Heist

Actors in Five Minutes to Live:

Johnny Cash
Donald Woods
Cay Forester
Pamela Mason
Vic Tayback
Midge Ware

Full Plot Details

CONTAINS SPOILERS Originally released in 1961 as Five Minutes to Live, this low-budget crime drama was later re-released as Door-to-Door Maniac. Fred narrates the film in flashback, detailing a suburban bank robbery that goes awry. In his simple plan, he hires a hard-up hood, Johnny Cabot to take the wife of the bank's vice president hostage. Cabot will hold her until he gets a call alerting him that Fred has been successful in getting ransom money. Cabot waits, and watches the Wilson house as the husband leaves for the bank and their young son heads off to school. Posing as a door-to-door guitar instructor, he forces his way into the house and takes Nancy Wilson hostage. At the bank, Fred talks his way into Ken Wilson's office, and presents his personal check for $70,000, intending that Wilson will withdraw the funds to cover the check as a ransom for his wife. He has Wilson call home to prove that Nancy is being held by the unstable Cabot, and gives Wilson 5 minutes to make his decision. If Fred fails to call the house back, Cabot is to kill Nancy. Wilson confesses to Fred that he has been planning to run off to Las Vegas with Ellen, the woman he has been having an affair with, and Fred will be doing him a favor by getting rid of Nancy. But as the minutes tick by, Wilson cracks and agrees to give him the money. Fred makes the first call to save Nancy. The clock starts ticking again, another 5 minutes, for Fred to collect the money and get out of the bank safely. While Fred is working on Wilson, Nancy is terrorized by Cabot-- manhandled and shot at, invited to slip into something more comfortable (which she does in a futile attempt to distract him) and finally forced to listen to him serenade her with "Five Minutes to Live" and "I've Come to Kill" while he waits for the second call. The call hasn't come as Fred has been overpowered by the police, who were alerted by the bank's silent alarm. Cabot is getting more and more stressed. While worrying about Fred not calling, he is completely thrown by Little Bobby arriving home for lunch just as the police arrive at the Wilson house. Cabot panics, grabs Bobby and runs into the yard under police fire. Bobby fakes his death to save himself, and Cabot is shot by a cop in the yard. Nancy is reunited with her now-contrite husband, who decides he will still go to Las Vegas, but with Nancy.

Review & Comments

Leave your thoughts about Five Minutes to Live.

Movie Reviews

Ozus' World Movie Reviews - 6/10 by Dennis SchwartzIt was incredible fun seeing a crazed Cash threatening to kill his hostage suburban housewife.
User Review - 6/10 by Henrique FIt's much more enjoyable than it should have been. From the script quirkiness sprinkled with humour to the middle part of a "sopa-opera gone bad" to Johnny Cash being a whole lot of Johnny Cash during the movie, it's almost impossible that you don't skip the technical deficiencies and go straight to a really fun 1h15m low-budget ride. Better watched withing a group of friends.
User Review - 6/10 by Edith NOkay, Get All Your Jokes Out of the Way Now To be perfectly honest, I had wanted today to be the second one in a row to have a tribute review, this time to an actual actor. However, I have already reviewed [i]The Green Mile[/i], [i]Daredevil[/i], and [i]Armageddon[/i]. The only three Michael Clarke Duncan movies which are available on Netflix Instant Play are two terrible-looking ones which each costar a different guy who was on [i]90210[/i] and [i]The Land Before Time XI[/i]. I respect both him and myself too much to remember him that way. However, I wasn't sure what I was actually in the mood for, so I did a bit of poking around on my various streaming options, having already decided that I wasn't interested in any of the stuff I had from the library. So I went poking around, and I discovered, while looking at the mediocre noir options available to me, that there was one starring Johnny Cash. It might not be a tribute, but it's interesting. Sort of. The story as it appears in various plot summaries is wrong. What actually happens is that Fred Dorella (Vic Tayback) has decided to rob a bank. He's done it before, and in twenty years of bank robbery, he's only done a year of prison time. He hires Johnny Cabot (Cash), who is also nicely cautious. The plan is that Dorella will go into the bank and inform vice president Ken Wilson (Donald Woods) that Johnny has Ken's wife, Nancy (Cay Forrester), hostage at home. If Ken does not authorize the cashing of a forged check for seventy-five thousand dollars, Johnny will kill Nancy. All this confirmed, of course, by phone calls back and forth. What Dorella does not find out in his examination of the Wilsons' lives is that Ken is planning to leave Nancy--that very day, in fact--for Doris Johnson (Midge Ware). However, that doesn't necessarily mean that Ken wants Nancy dead, and Dorella convinces him that not going along with what he wants will make Ken complicit in Nancy's murder. Now, I have to say, I'm not buying the happy ending. (Of course there's a happy ending; why wouldn't there be?) It's not that I think Johnny would necessarily get away with his plan, nor would Dorella. I'm even amused by the trick played by young Bobby Wilson (little Ronnie Howard!) to get away from Johnny himself. However, the ending is enough in touch with the Code that the Wilsons reconcile and go on vacation together. However, whatever problems caused Ken to leave Nancy in the first place are still unresolved. They're probably in part because of her obsessive social-climbing, but even if I thought that was everything, I don't think her social-climbing is going to be resolved by a hostage situation. Her personality is still the way it is, and things like that are seldom changed by a single event. So, you know, they should still see a therapist or something after they get back from their vacation, because they're going to have to work out their problems. Honestly, this is better than a lot of Elvis movies. It's not a great movie, but it's still better than it could have been. Johnny Cash did a pretty good job playing a crazy crazy killer. You really believe that he's willing to kill Nancy as soon as look at her, and it's not just the obligatory jokes about wanting to watch her die. Though, yes, I was making those jokes in my head as well. And it is a little odd that Johnny spends all his time waiting for the phone call either threatening to rape Nancy or else noodling around on his guitar. However, there isn't the crazy obsessive stopping every five minutes for a cheesy musical number that you got with your standard Elvis movie. Indeed, it wouldn't surprise mt to discover that this is closer to the sort of thing that Elvis himself wanted to make. You know, gritty. Serious. This was the same year that Elvis made [i]Blue Hawaii[/i], which I have not seen in many years, but it was light and fluffy. A standard Elvis movie, in other words. I watch a lot of forgettable noir. I always have, and I don't generally bother writing reviews of them. There has to be something really noteworthy, usually an interesting star. And say what you like, Johnny Cash was an interesting star. He does with the role what pretty much anyone could have, given that there's not much to it. I've seen a dozen variations of the character played by at least as many actors. There's always a place for the kill-crazy criminal--heck, I've seen this role played by Humphrey Bogart a time or two, and I'm not sure he could have done much more with the role than Johnny Cash did. It's a decent enough film, for what it's worth--worse than some and better than most, I'd say. Noir by definition is a bit of a forgettable genre, and most of the movies in it were made on the cheap without putting a lot of time or money into good actors or good scripts. Johnny Cash wasn't a bad actor, and he did what he could with the script. I guess that's all there is to say about it.
User Review - 6/10 by Brody MA fine, tense b-movie that demonstrates that Johnny Cash could act, as well as sing, play the guitar, and write great songs. Cash plays Johnny Cabot, a thug hired for a daring, innovative bank heist where his partner (Vic Tayback) can walk out of the bank without drawing a gun or raising an eyebrow. While Tayback's character, Fred, blackmails the manager of a smalltown bank (Donald Woods), Cabot holds the manager's wife (Cay Forrester) hostage, lest the manager give in to Fred and Cabot's demands. The majority of the movie comprises the interplay between Cabot and the manager's wife, as the clock ticks in the background, signaling her imminent doom if her husband fails to come through. Though the scenes outside the picture-perfect suburban sitting room tend to kill the movie's momentum, most of "Five Minutes to Live" comprise the scenes between Cash and Forrester, thankfully.
User Review - 4/10 by Joseph BAwkward, cheap, and tone-deaf, but not without high aspirations.
User Review - 4/10 by Timm SI've never seen so much of nothing in my life. A group of gangsters go door-to-door killing whoever answers and stealing their kids. The town is obviously in disarray as the robbers pile up victims. Is there any hope for the town or will the robbers wipe them out? "You don't appreciate me." "What's there to appreciate?" Bill Karn, director of Dangerous Assignment, Gang Busters, Guns Don't Argue, and Ma Barker's Killer Brood, delivers Five Minutes to Live. The storyline for this picture isn't as good as it had the potential to be. The acting and soundtrack were both a little corny and disappointing. The cast includes Johnny Cash, Donald Woods, Cay Forester, and Ron Howard. "I need someone with experience." "I've been around." I DVR'd this picture off Turner Classic Movies (TCM) because it starred the legendary Johnny Cash. I had never heard of this movie but the plot sounded great. This is a classic drive-in movie with songs from the period, and Johnny Cash acting cool on the big screen; however, the content was minimal and disappointing. I'd skip this picture. "I'm wearing that horrible negligee you bought me." Grade: C-
User Review - 4/10 by Allan CDreary melodrama about bad ass bank robbers taking the bank presidents wife hostage, with typical results, crime doesnt pay. Johnny Cash's good acting highlight other wise dull movie light on action more on talking
User Review - 4/10 by Eric RNot much going on in this early film to star the music legend Johnny Cash. The starts with a crime going awry and Cash has to go into hiding until the next big crimes is ploted out. Which turns to be taking a bank teller wife hostage to have the teller make the killers demands or the wife is dead. Cash looks good as the psycho killer, but that's the only thing that stands out in this low budget quickie.

Browse Movie Genres

Other Links

Five Minutes to Live

Watch Online For Free | Free Movies | Movie Genres | Most Viewed | Top Rated | Latest Releases

About Us • Affiliates • Terms of Use • Disclaimer • Cookies • Privacy Policy • Copyright • DMCA Compliance • Contact Us • Language Settings

Copyright © 2004 - 2016 Watch Online For Free or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Imagery, artwork, logos, service marks, and trademarks used on this page are the intellectual property of their respective companies.

Related Websites: Prime Free Trial - DVD Rental Free Trial - Free Prime Video Trial - Movie Trailers