J Paul Johnson
At the start of the 1960s, Johnny Cash was a rising country star, but not yet a household name. He’d had a handful of hits topping the country and western charts and some modest success with “I Walk the Line” reaching the pop top 20. What better way, he might have thought to himself, to raise his profile than with a leading appearance in a motion picture? Few today might recall his first film appearance as “Johnny Cabot” in 1961’s Five Minutes to Live, a film that did his career no favors. A few years later, after “Ring of Fire” and Cash’s high-profile Carter family touring gig, the film was re-released as Door-to-Door Maniac: Film Masters has restored the re-release from its original archive elements for a two-disc Blu-ray and DVD collector’s edition, shining a new light on the singer’s brief first foray into film.
Cash, looking to cement his outlaw image, plays a true criminal, a small-time hoodlum whose fingers are as quick on the fretboard as they are on a trigger. In the film’s first moments, his Johnny Cabot is gleefully gunning down a cop in a heist gone wrong. On the lam, he takes to the suburbs, where no one will find him—except another criminal, Fred Donello, played by a surprisingly richly-coiffed Vic Tayback, who needs a lieutenant for his next job. Donello’s plan is to strong-arm a bank president, Ken Wilson (glum-faced Donald Woods, who looks reluctant to be part of the whole enterprise) into signing off on a big draft while Johnny holds the man’s wife (Nancy, played by co-writer and co-producer Kay Forrester) hostage in their suburban home. That’s a plan that might work, except for Johnny’s libidinous urges and a fact the two crooks failed to research: the adulterous Wilson really wouldn’t mind his wife being killed.
There’s nothing wrong with the perfectly serviceable neo-noir home-invasion plot. Some pretty good films have been made from similar pulp (think, say, Cape Fear). Donello tells the whole tale in flashback, so how he would know any of what happens inside the Wilson’s suburban tract home—and plenty does—is a complete mystery.
Let’s be clear: Door-to-Door Maniac is not great. It’s not even good. But then, that’s not the point. The appeal here is Johnny Cash in the first of just two theatrically-released fiction-film appearances (the second coming a full decade later, in The Gunfight, and no, not counting his made-for-television turn in a soggy Stagecoach remake), given a lot of latitude as an actor, and hoping to expand his appeal. His Johnny Cabot pretends to be a door-to-door salesman to enter the Wilsons’ household with his guitar, then torture-serenades his captive, because, well, he’s played by Johnny Cash, and Johnny Cash is there to sing.
He’s also there, in a stunningly cringeworthy sequence mostly censored from the 1961 release, to rape. Without going into too many of the grisly details, it’s a scene that’s both daring and dated, depicting his victim as aroused, even orgasmic, while Johnny’s character disappears offscreen and the image lingers in close-up on Nancy’s pleasured face. (I’m reminded how Kimberly Peirce couldn’t get more than a second or two of Chloe Sevigny’s o-face past the censors in Boys Don’t Cry three decades later.)
Whatever one makes of the film’s abject misogyny, Door-to-Door Maniac offers up a few pleasant surprises along the way. Tayback is great, though onscreen too little, as Johnny’s slick-and-smarmy partner. Ron—then Ronnie—Howard delivers as he always did as the Wilsons’ child, especially as the film comes to its close. And Cash, even as he was deep in the throes of drinking and addiction, is a truly menacing screen presence, giving the Robert Mitchums of the world a run for their money. Had Five Minutes to Live or its re-release been a bit better, film roles just might have been a more significant element of the Man in Black’s sturdy career.
Paired alongside Door-to-Door Maniac on a second disc is the ultra-rare bonus film, Right Hand of the Devil (1963). Like many of the public domain movies Film Masters has been selecting for its remastering and re-packaging efforts, the little-known Right Hand of the Devil is an exercise in DIY funding and filmmaking. Turkish-born Aram Katcher had had a few ethnic bad-guy roles in the 1950s and was scuffling along with bit parts as the years passed. His uncanny resemblance to Napoleon Bonaparte led to him playing the French emperor not once but twice; Alfred Hitchcock famously fired him from Topaz, saying he “looked the part [of Fidel Castro’s brother] but did not act it.”
Katcher had more success as the owner-operator of Aram’s, a West L.A. salon catering to Hollywood types. At some point he set down the clippers to self-finance this vanity project, a somewhat self-deluded magnum opus made with a crew of but four for under $20k. He shot the film over four weekends, serving himself as the film’s writer, director, lead actor, producer, editor, title designer, costume designer, prop man, and make-up supervisor.
Like Door-to-Door Maniac, Right Hand of the Devil is a heist film, except here without the musical and thespian talents of Johnny Cash or the ugly misogyny of its rape-hostage sequence. Katcher plays a criminal mastermind who hires a motley crew of henchmen to target a sports arena’s post-bout take. Suffice it to say Katcher’s ambitions exceeded his talent. It’s at best a giddy fail of a film with some fun horror-inspired tropes and just enough surprises to satisfy the most slavish of cult-cinema devotees. Later, he would—in an apparent fit of pique—destroy all the 35mm elements. Film Masters’ new 4K scan comes from a rare 16mm reduction print, from the collection of noted film historian and producer Samuel M. Sherman, who tried to work with Katcher to re-release the film.
With Door-to-Door Maniac scanned in 4K from 35mm original archival elements and Right Hand of the Devil scanned in 4K from 16mm archival elements, each film is presented with two aspect ratios (Door-to-Door Maniac in 1.85:1 and 1.37:1 and Right Hand of the Devil in 1.66:1 and 1.37:1). Discs are region free and include English SDH. Audio is DTS-HD/Dolby AC3s.
Special Features
Since their inaugural release in 2023, Film Masters has consistently worked to provide copious, if occasionally inconsistent, special features to accompany their re-releases. Such is the case here with the double feature of Door-to-Door Maniac and Right Hand of the Devil.
At the center are the two commentary tracks. Both take the spontaneous approach, joking and jostling about ad hoc as the film plays, sprinkling in a few historical facts and researched anecdotes along the way. If there is a continuum between, say, a somber Peters Cowie or Bogdanovich intoning on a Criterion Bergman or Welles release and the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew snarking on the very worst of cinema, both commentary tracks here are much closer to the latter.
Larry Strothe, James Gonis, Shawn Sheridan and Matt Weinhold of the Monster Party podcast handle the commentary for Right Hand of the Devil, Author/podcaster Daniel Budnik and film historian Rob Kelly provide the commentary track for Door-to-Door Maniac. Both tracks are mildly engaging, especially if you are fans of the podcasters, though the few real insights into either film’s productions are outweighed by pithy snark. For Door-to-Door Maniac, the track really could use a woman in the room, ideally a feminist film scholar to offer at least a little critique of that film’s most notorious scene.
C. Courtney Joyner provides liner notes for Right Hand of the Devil, focusing mostly on the work of the film’s producer, Ralph Brooke. Don Stradley in his liner note for Door-to-Door Maniac concentrates on the film’s pre-production and re-release. Additionally, Ryan Verrill and Will Dodson from Someone’s Favorite Productions contribute an insightful ten-minute visual essay, Player Piano: Passion of Aram Katcher. Rounding out the edition are a recut 2024 trailer for Door-to-Door Maniac and the restored, original trailer for Right Hand of the Devil.
Film Masters’ double-feature special edition of Door-to-Door Maniac and Right Hand of the Devil retails for $29.95 (Blu-ray) / $19.95 (DVD) and releases August 27, 2024. Pre-orders are available from the distributor at www.filmmasters.com.
