| The Last Shot You Hear | |
| Director: | Gordon Hessler |
| Producer: | Jack Parsons |
| Screenplay: | Tim Shields |
| Starring: | Hugh Marlowe Zena Walker Patricia Haines William Dysart |
| Music: | Bert Shefter |
| Cinematography: | David Holmes |
| Editing: | Robert Winter |
| Studio: | Lippert Pictures |
| Distributor: | 20th Century Fox |
| Released: | (United States) (United Kingdom) |
| Runtime: | 90 minutes |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
The Last Shot You Hear is a 1969 British thriller film directed by Gordon Hessler and starring Hugh Marlowe, Zena Walker, Patricia Haines, and William Dysart.[1] The screenplay was by Tim Shields based on William Fairchild's 1959 playThe Sound of Murder.
The film marked the end of the association between Robert L. Lippert and 20th Century Fox which produced over 200 films.[2] It was Marlowe's last film appearance.[3]
Filming started November 1967.[4] Its original working title was The Jolly Girls.[5] The Shaggy Pups wrote the theme song.[6] Lippert announced he had purchased an original story by Hessler, Genoa. However, when Lippert and Fox ended their relationship the film was not made.[7]
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "In striking contrast to the panache he brought to Scream and Scream Again, Gordon Hessler's direction of this earlier thriller is largely constructed round an endless repetition of prolonged close-ups, which only serve to emphasise the hackneyed theatricality of the characters and situations. The actors, perhaps because of the dialogue they are given, simply cannot stand up to this kind of scrutiny, and the result is something approaching the surreal, as though the whole surface of ie film is about to crumble away before our eyes. An obviously low budget may be partly to blame, 'but it's difficult to see what anyone could have done with the sheer, undiluted banality of the material."[8]
According to Fox records the film required $450,000 in rentals to break even and by 11 December 1970 had made $290,000 so made a loss to the studio.[9]