Cash on Demand

Cash on Demand (1961) is a tightly coiled British crime thriller you can watch online on iFILM. Director Quentin Lawrence keeps almost the entire 84-minute runtime inside a single provincial bank, squeezing the tension out of conversation and proximity rather than car chases or gunfire. Peter Cushing plays the bank's prim, difficult manager Harcourt; André Morell is the silky criminal who shows up with forged insurance credentials.

The setup is blunt. Colonel Haddley tells Harcourt that his family is already in the hands of accomplices — and the only way to get them back safely is to help him walk out with £90,000 in cash, all while smiling at staff and customers as if it's a regular Thursday. Harcourt can't raise an alarm. He can't look frightened. He has to perform normality under pressure that would crack most people in minutes.

What makes the film stick is watching Cushing — usually cast as the composed intellectual — slowly come apart at the seams. It is one of the more underrated British crime pictures of the era. Stream Cash on Demand (1961) online on iFILM.