''Victim Five'' (also known as ''Code 7, Victim 5!'' and ''Code Seven, Victim Five''), is a 1964 British

crime film Crime film is a film belonging to the crime fiction genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and fiction. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine with many other genres, such as Drama (film and television), dr ...

directed by Robert Lynn and starring

Lex Barker Alexander Crichlow Barker Jr. (May 8, 1919 – May 11, 1973), known as Lex Barker, was an American film and television actor. He was known for playing Tarzan for RKO Pictures between 1949 and 1953 and portraying leading characters from Karl May' ...

, Ronald Fraser,

Ann Smyrner Ann Smyrner (3 November 1934 – 29 August 2016) was a Danish actress who was active in the 1960s in Italy, the United States, Austria and West Germany. She played in adventure, comedy, science fiction, crime, and horror movies, among which are ...

, and

Walter Rilla Walter Rilla (22 August 1894 – 21 November 1980) was a German film actor of Jewish descent. Siegbert Salomon Prawer, ''Between Two Worlds: The Jewish Presence in German and Austrian Film, 1910-1933'', Berghahn Books (2007), pg. 213 He app ...

. It was produced by

Harry Alan Towers Harry Alan Towers (19 October 1920 – 31 July 2009) was a British radio and independent film producer and screenwriter. He wrote numerous screenplays for the films he produced, often under the pseudonym Peter Welbeck. He produced over 80 f ...

and US television producer Arthur "Skip" Steloff and was shot in

Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...

in Technicolor and

Techniscope Techniscope or 2-perf is a 35 mm motion picture camera film format introduced by Technicolor Italia in 1960. The Techniscope format uses a two film- perforation negative pulldown per frame, instead of the standard four-perforation frame ...

. The cinematographer was

Nicolas Roeg Nicolas Jack Roeg ( ; 15 August 1928 – 23 November 2018) was an English film director and cinematographer, best known for directing ''Performance (film), Performance'' (1970), ''Walkabout (film), Walkabout'' (1971), ''Don't Look Now'' (1973) ...

Plot

New York City private detective Steve Martin is hired for protection by Wexler, a wealthy German living in

. After Wexler's butler is murdered and an assassination attempt is made on Martin and Wexler's secretary Helga, Martin discovers a photograph of four people, including Wexler and his butler, that indicates that all those in the picture are marked for death and there will be five victims.

Cast

Critical reception

The ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' praised "fine views of Cape Town" but thought the film was not "necessary". ''

The Monthly Film Bulletin The ''Monthly Film Bulletin'' was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 until April 1991, when it merged with '' Sight & Sound''. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those wi ...

'' wrote: "The basic narrative is one of the classic old-style murder thrillers of the kind perfected by

Edgar Wallace Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1 April 1875 – 10 February 1932) was a British writer of crime and adventure fiction. Born into poverty as an illegitimate London child, Wallace left school at the age of 12. He joined the army at age 21 and was ...

and Philip Macdonald, and is efficiently worked out. Most of the acting is unremarkable, but what undoubtedly heightens the film's interest is the large variety of South African locations, often spectacular, and well integrated into the story."

References

External links

*
Code 7 Victim 5
at Letterbox DVD 1964 films 1964 crime films 1960s English-language films British detective films Police detective films Films directed by Robert Lynn Films set in South Africa Films shot in South Africa British crime films 1960s British films Works by Peter Yeldham English-language crime films {{1960s-crime-film-stub