praxistens848 Low-budget but suspenseful Cold War yarn, with Sterling Hayden & Ruth Roman. Hayden is gruff John Emit, whose car breaks down in California on his road to nowhere (supposedly en route to visit his folks in Texas). The suspiciously friendly Ann Nicholson (Roman) offers Emit a lift, as long as he'll drive some. She's going to New Mexico.Along the way, her psychiatrist (the future Col. Klink, Werner Klemperer) & his nurse pop up; with sundry likewise suspicious characters: cops, a university dean, CIA, FBI (Ken "Festus" Curtis), & hired killers. Ann's carrying missile secrets, which are carved into a ladies' mirror. There's a fine sudden twist to the showdown with the guy for whom the missile secrets are meant.For a low-budget thriller, the acting's surprisingly low-key. Hayden does restrained bewilderment very well: quite contrary to his lead role in "The Killing," a couple years before. Roman is also restrained in her role as a suspected spy, with secrets of her own culled from both sides of the globe. As our Dad used to say, "A goody to see again!"

blanche-2 "Five Steps to Danger" is a decent film from 1957, directed by Henry Kesler and starring Ruth Roman and Sterling Hayden.Why do I think I must be going insane? All these comparisons to Hitchcock. Okay, the basic story is similar, but so are lots of stories. This movie was as much like a Hitchcock film as "The Sound of Music." Two people handcuffed together does not mean you can make a viable comparison.The story is interesting, but awkward. Ann (Roman) approaches John (Hayden) in a restaurant. He has just sold his car, which can't be fixed easily, and her car is being serviced. She is in a hurry to get to New Mexico and asks if, for a ride, he will help with the driving so she can get there faster by having him drive at night. He agrees. Well, we live in different times today, but I wouldn't have even talked to this guy much less offer him a ride. Too many true crime shows, I guess.At one point Hayden is approached by a nurse, who explains that Roman has just been discharged from a mental facility and is being monitored by her and her doctor. The nurse is played by the late Jeanne Cooper, Mrs. Chancellor on The Young and the Restless. She is nearly unrecognizable, she's so young.Eventually it's revealed that Roman, who was in Berlin and lost family during the war, is supposed to deliver a transcript to a family friend working in the U.S., Dr. Fritz Kissel. She has just located him at a university. The university denies he's ever been there, and Everyone wants to stop her from finding him.I found this film talky, low on action, low on suspense, and the dialogue and pace awkward. Ruth Roman was very good. I've never been a fan of Sterling Hayden's, but he was okay here.So-so.

stills-6 Poorly directed, poorly staged, and veers into propagandist self-parody, it nevertheless works because of the two leads. Sterling Hayden is fantastic as the everyman drifter, and manages to make the occasionally ham-handed script sound authentic. This is a kind of American-character type study that sets the American everyman as more of a puzzle-solver than an ass-kicker, though both are in evidence. Ruth Roman is somewhat off-putting and passionless, but it's the kind of performance that keeps you guessing and makes you wonder about her. Whether or not that was intentional is debatable. Their relationship is also off-putting, but has a strange resonance, if only because of Hayden's droopy-lipped deadpan.The somewhat stiff supporting cast, except maybe for Cooper, gives the impression that this is army-issue "What To Do" type stuff for a Cold War audience. And I'm sure there was some of that kind of thinking behind it. The all-seeing Deus-Ex-Machina of the espionage machine is very heavy.I wonder about people who think that the absence of suspense in a movie like this is a weakness. I suppose if you were expecting thrilling suspense or some kind of a mindless noir-caper style of movie you would be sorely disappointed. The at-times blocky and then wildly uncontrolled staging make it very difficult to sustain a consistent tone, and the director doesn't appear to want to pay attention to any kind of thematic imagery. Perhaps counter-intuitively, this makes the threat posed by the story seem more artlessly plausible, and the tension created revolves around psychological issues rather than mortal ones. If any attention had been paid to the implications of this idea, it might be a better movie. As it is, it's mostly entertaining and highly watchable.

bexa This excerpt from one of the comments cracked me up: "Sterling Hayden plays John and Ruth Roman is Ann. While they were adequate, I couldn't help but wonder what the movie would have been like with Gary Cooper and Suzanne Pleshette, as the leads very much resembled these two known actors." They would have only been 40 years apart in age and Ruth Roman and Sterling Hayden were certainly better known when this movie was made than Suzanne Pleshette!!! Sterling Hayden is his gallant best here and Ruth Roman is wonderful as the damsel in distress. And for us retro clothes horses, wears a great wardrobe!Werner Klemperer (Colonel Klink from "Hogan's Heroes") takes us dangerously close the the edge of camp, but again, this is before that role...but it does lend a sense of unintentional hilarity to those of us who remember that TV show.