Just released on August 27th, 2024 is the latest double feature release the folks at Film Masters. This time, Film Masters has released a set of two fairly obscure crime thrillers from the early 1960’s; the generally forgotten Johnny Cash-starring Door-to-Door Maniac, and the even lesser known and nearly lost Right Hand of the Devil. Let’s waste no further time and jump right into the release.

Door-to-Door Maniac: Also known as “Five Minutes to Live”, Door-to-Door Maniac is the first film to star the legendary “Man in Black”, Johnny Cash. While Cash would make numerous television appearances on shows such as “Columbo”, “Little House on the Prairie”, and even “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman”, he would only appear in a handful of feature films, most times portraying himself. Door-to-Door Maniac would also prove to be the final film for director Bill Karn, who had previously directed Ma Barker’s Killer Brood in 1960, as well as multiple episodes of the early-1950’s television program “Gang Busters”.

The story is told in the form of a flashback, one provided by bank robber Fred Dorella. Dorella is portrayed by Vic Tayback, who is undoubtedly best remembered as cantankerous chef “Mel” on the television comedy “Alice”, but also appeared in films such as 1976’s Mansion of the Doomed and the 1989 “sex comedy” Loverboy. Dorella has hired career thug Johnny Cabot (Cash) to assist in his latest scheme.

However, instead of your traditional “armed men wearing masks” style robbery, Dorella’s plan is for the bank’s vice president, Ken Wilson (Donald Woods – 13 Ghosts, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms), to willingly hand over the money. Of course, Mr. Wilson will need to be persuaded to do such a thing, which is why Cabot is holding the man’s wife, Nancy (Cay Forrester, who appeared in 1949’s D.O.A.), hostage in their family home. If Wilson complies, Dorella makes a phone call to Cabot and Nancy will be set free. However, if anything prevents Dorella from making that call, she will die by Cabot’s hand.

The one aspect of his scheme that Dorella failed to account for was Mr. Wilson’s devotion to his wife, or more accurately, his lack thereof. You see, Mr. Wilson is quite unhappily married; enough so that he has taken on a mistress, one that he was planning on running off to Vegas with that very evening. Although not explicitly stated, the fate of his young son, Bobby (Ron Howard, who had only recently started appearing on “The Andy Griffith Show”), also seems to be of little concern to Mr. Wilson as he never mentions the welfare of his child even once.

While Dorella and Wilson sit and wait for the other to break, Cabot occupies himself by tormenting Nancy. The manner of his cruelties escalates as the film progresses, starting with unwelcomely serenading the woman with songs about her impending demise, before moving on to berating her for her appearance and manner of dress (in this case, a house robe), and finally raping the woman. This segment of the film also plays an unsettling role in the film’s conclusion and becomes quite controversial as it is presented as though Nancy somewhat welcomes the assault, seeking the attention and sexual fulfillment that she’s lacking in her marriage, albeit in a manner that repulses and shames her. There is an extended shot of Nancy’s face seemingly expressing both orgasm and disgust during this sequence that is likely to elicit varying strong emotions from viewers, but is also probably the one moment from the film most likely to burn itself into your memory.

Cay Forrester serves double duty on Door-To-Door Maniac, having also co-wrote the film’s screenplay, which is based off of a story by Palmer Thompson. Thompson, a writer who worked primarily in television, is credited with having scripted episodes for shows such as “The Rifleman”, “Hawaii Five-O”, and “Tom Corbett, Space Cadet”. Robert L. Joseph, one of the screenwriters on the Ida Lupino-directed 1953 film, The Hitch-Hiker, also worked on the film’s script.

Although Door-to-Door Maniac does tell a rather compelling and somewhat sadistic tale, I found the film’s biggest “selling point” to also be its biggest hinderance. Cash’s performance often becomes too uneven and erratic, occasionally bordering on cartoonish and silly. While someone like Nic Cage has been able to make a successful career out of unhinged performances, Cash tends to just come off as completely wasted. As Cash’s amphetamine usage was reportedly quite heavy at this time, there may be some truth to this opinion.

As a black & white crime thriller, there are lingering elements of film noir to be found within “Five Minutes to Live”. However, by 1962, this genre of film had become somewhat out of fashion, with filmgoers instead choosing to invest their time and ticket money on the newer big budgeted, full-color, grand scale spectacles that major studios had started to invest in. As such, the film was a flop during its initial 1962 release.

Thanks to the rise in Cash’s popularity in subsequent years, the film was re-released in 1967 under its new title of Door-to-Door Maniac and marketed as a horror film. For whatever reason, Door-to-Door Maniac often inexplicably found itself paired with the 1965 kaiju (film), Frankenstein Conquers the World. Still, the film was a flop and soon faded into obscurity. Cash is reported to have been embarrassed by the film.

 

Right Hand of the Devil – The second feature in the set was produced, directed, and co-written by its star, Aram Katcher. Katcher was a salon owner and character actor who found himself portraying Napoleon Bonapart in both the 1952 film Scaramouch and an episode of “I Dream of Jeanie”, as well as a small role in the incredibly grim 1952 Cold War thriller, Invasion U.S.A. Right Hand of the Devil was co-written by Ralph Brooke, who served as a producer on 1955’s Man Beast, a writer on 1958’s Giant from the Unknown, and as both on 1961’s Bloodlust!  That film, as I’m sure many readers already know, features Robert Reed of “The Brady Bunch” years before that show’s success.

In the film, a con man named Pepe Lusara (Katcher) hires a small gang of thugs to help him rob the ticket office of a sporting arena. To help achieve this goal, he also seduces the elderly woman who serves as the venue’s head cashier. However, Lusara is a deceitful double-crosser with plans to eliminate anyone linking him to the crime in rather gruesome fashion. However, as with any good morality tale, due to his own ego and over-exuberance, retribution is waiting for Lusara down the road.

Much like the film accompanying it in this set, Right Hand of the Devil is a grim and twisted tale of over-zealous criminals and the lives they destroy, both films concluding with not-overly-happy endings. The film is clearly a vanity project meant for Katcher to display his talents. Yet, like many other vanity projects, the film shows no lack of ambition, but said “talent” is questionable.

Performances are generally respectable, although Katcher does tend to get a bit hammy at times. The story is also quite compelling, if somewhat predictable. Right Hand of the Devil does suffer a bit from amateurish editing, with some scenes either ending abruptly or awkwardly lingering on for far too long, and other moments that feel generally random. That said, this randomness is also part of what made the film so appealing to me. Besides, I can’t think of many other movies where someone has a prosthetic leg thrown at them. 

Overall, while heavily flawed, I actually enjoyed Right Hand of the Devil more than Door-to-Door Maniac. That said, the two films work well as companion pieces and are perfectly paired on this set.

 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The blu-ray disc of Door-to-Door Maniac contains a recreated trailer for the film, as well as a commentary track from author/podcaster Daniel Budnik and film historian Rob Kelly. This is pretty light as far as Film Masters special feature offerings tend to go, but it is somewhat understandable given the film’s limited popularity.

Also included are a commentary track by the crew at the Monster Party Podcast, as well as a television cut of the film.

Included on the Right Hand of the Devil blu-ray disc are the film’s original trailer, as well as an 11-minute long video essay entitled “Piano Player: The Passion of Aram Katcher” courtesy of Someone’s Favorite Productions.

INCLUDED BOOKLET:

As is the case with all Film Masters releases, a booklet containing essays, shots from the films, and images of marketing materials is included.  The two essays presented in this particular release are:

“The Joys of Door-to-Door Maniac” by Don Stradley: A brief look at the film, its production, and some of the people behind the film. Clearly, Stradley appreciates Cash’s performance much more than I do, calling it “seasoned” and “underrated”.

“The Right Hand to the Right Hand of the Devil” by C. Courtney Joyner: My favorite film commentator returns yet again, this time to share a little history on this obscurity of a film and the man behind it. Joyner states that when the film failed to find an audience, Katcher set to destroying prints of the film himself.  This said, the essay tends to focus more on scriptwriter Ralph Brooke and some of his other film works, Giant from the Unknown in particular.

VIDEO/AUDIO QUALITY: Film Masters’ release of Door-to-Door Maniac features a “4K transfer from original 35mm archival materials”, which, really, could mean anything. Now, I won’t pretend to have been overly familiar with the film prior to starting this review, having only watched the film once previously some 15 years ago or so. As such, I really have little to compare this HD transfer to.

That said, I found the presentation of the film on this blu-ray release to be quite satisfactory. There did appear to be some minor scratching, but nothing that distracted from the presentation. I also found the audio side of things to be suitable, but not overly dynamic. Dialog was clear, and the film’s score was nicely presented, but truthfully, there’s nothing here that really stands out either way other than a few thin sounding gunshots.

Right Hand of the Devil‘s transfer is quite suitable, but noticeably lacks the clarity and crispness of that found on the blu-ray’s main feature. However, the drop in picture quality is largely due to the film itself, having been made with a miniscule budget and significantly less film making experience, as well as lesser quality prints being available thanks to Katcher’s attempts to destroy all traces of his creation. The same can be said for Right Hand of the Devil‘s audio track, which tends to be more muffled and muted than that found on the accompanying film in the set, but still proved quite adequate. Again, some of this is clearly inherent in the film itself.

FINAL VERDICT: I really didn’t know what to expect with Film Master’s newest release as I admittedly wasn’t familiar with either of the films featured. Although I had watched Door-to-Door Maniac once many years prior, I remembered very little outside of the fact that it was not a horror film, which makes it stand out somewhat on this website. As for Right Hand of the Devil, I had never even heard of the film prior to this particular release, and it was my curiosity about this particular title that led me to undertake this review. 

That curiosity paid off as I found myself enjoying both films, although not to the degree that I foresee myself repeatedly watching either over the coming years. Again, “curiosity” seems to be the apropos term here as I don’t really see either film as more than just that: curiosities. Surely, the presence of Cash has been enough to keep Door-to-Door Maniac from fading into complete obscurity.

Both films on the set receive pleasing, if not stellar, transfers, albeit with some minor print damage, more so on Right Hand. However, knowing that the film was produced with limited resources and talent and then nearly wiped from existence by its own creator, having any watchable prints of the film is something of a miracle. As such, I’m beyond appreciative of the efforts put forth by Film Masters.

Overall, I’m sure this release will please whatever fanbase either of these two films has and will hopefully help them find new fans.