User Reviews

TIME IS MY ENEMY is a solid example of the British crime B-movie, featuring a notable cast working their way through a story which is both familiar and engaging at the same time. The subject this time around is blackmail, with a thought-dead husband returning to make his former wife's life a mystery. She thought him dead and has remarried, and he now threatens to expose her for bigamy if she won't come up with the five hundred quid he needs in order to flee the country. The story goes along at a quick old clip and builds to a twist ending you won't see coming.

Films like this were bread and butter for many actors during the 1950s and so it proves here. Dennis Price is delightfully distasteful as the awful kidnapper and you'll cheer at certain plot points. Renee Asherson gives a carefully mannered and convincing turn as the put-upon wife, just one credit in an extremely lengthy film career. Patrick Barr is continually underrated but gives a very good turn as the innocent husband caught up in the mess, and the likes of Alfie Bass, Duncan Lamont, William Franklyn, and Susan Shaw round out the cast very nicely.

Dennis Price is the standout in this little short thriller which involves murder ,bigamy,blackmail ,jewels theft.

A short movie,which justifies the title ; the screenplay has enough sudden new developments to satisfy the suspense buffs ; the villain is particularly successful, achieving the feat of dying twice and raising twice from the dead ,diabolique indeed.More at ease in pure thriller than in social comment with such movies as "the flesh is weak" ,Donald Chaffey knows only one tempo :accelerated.

Routine B&W cheapie based on the implausible premise that a remarried woman (Renee Ascherson) would allow herself to be blackmailed by her crooked first husband (Dennis Price), long since declared dead in the blitz, who turns up and threatens to expose her 'bigamy' unless she coughs up £500 (the amount keeps rising through the film). Any sensible woman would tell him to clear off, and explain this development to her husband, and the police - it is the first husband who is the criminal, not her. (She doesn't know the true extent of his crimes, including theft and murder, but she knows he's a blackmailer!) But there has to be a plot, so fair enough. She pleads poverty, despite having a servant, but finally gives in. When Price pushes her too far she shoots him dead with his own gun, and then decides to confess all to her husband, who rushes to the crime scene to remove the evidence. Oh dear, she's murderer, and their best friend is a copper, heading the search for Price - she's in 'a jam', as desperate situations are described in this kind of script. Fortunately, Price's death is faked - he's going to disappear, and pin the blame for an actual murder on her, relying on another implausible chain of events, incredibly unlikely to occur, but which of course do. Never mind, the cops work it out, and it's all sorted in a hour, with a final revelation that Price has an earlier marriage behind him, so the heroine's current one is legal after all! Contrived hokum.

A better title for Time Is My Enemy would be The Husband Who Wouldn't Die! Or The Son Who Was An Atrocious Speller! Or Not Really A Bigamist After All! Or The Dennis Price Of Blackmail! I Or I Thought You Were Dead! Or Always Check For A Pulse! Or The Inspector Who Was Always There! Or My Life Was Just Fine Until You Showed Up! Or Honesty Is The Best Policy! Or The Wife Who Used Poor Judgment - This Is An English Film, So It's Actually Spelled Judgement! Or Just Barely A Feature Length Film! Or Never Drink Alone When You Can Drink With The Cleaning Lady! Or Nobody Heard The Gunshot! Or Bond, Harry Bond!