ClassicFlix: First Look at New 4K Restoration of Noir Thriller Five Steps to Danger

U.S. label ClassicFlix has released a brand new trailer for its 4K restoration of Henry S. Kesler's Cold War noir thriller Five Steps to Danger (1957), starring Ruth Roman, Sterling Hayden, Werner Klemperer, Jeanne Cooper, Peter Hansen, and Richard Gaines. The restoration will be released on Blu-ray on April 24.

Synopsis: Stranded in a small California town after experiencing car trouble, vacationing John Emmett is spared the tedium of bus travel when he has a chance meeting with Ann Nicholson—who offers him a lift if he'll agree to split the driving duties to Santa Fe. He soon learns that Ann is actually a patient recovering from a nervous breakdown, however, and a simple little road trip blossoms into a Cold War nightmare as the couple are ensnared in a web of mystery involving vital national security secrets!

Based on Donald Hamilton's "The Steel Mirror" (serialized in The Saturday Evening Post in 1948), 5 Steps to Danger stars film noir icon Sterling Hayden (The Asphalt Jungle) as a Hitchcockian hero innocently up to his neck in intrigue and danger. Ruth Roman, no stranger to noir films herself (The Window), is Hayden's love interest: a woman whose suspicious background makes her someone difficult to trust.

Directed by Henry Kessler, Danger also features several familiar classic TV faces among its supporting cast: Werner Klemperer, a two-time Emmy winner as Colonel Klink on Hogan's Heroes, portrays a psychiatrist, and daytime drama doyenne Jeanne Cooper (The Young and the Restless) is Roman's concerned nurse. Stir in uncredited contributions from Sidney Clute (Cagney & Lacey) and Ken Curtis (Gunsmoke), and you have in 5 Steps to Danger a crackling good suspense thriller that will keep you guessing to the very end! (Cinematography by Kenneth Peach, Chicago Confidential, Curse of the Faceless Man).