Alternate Best Actor 1961: Peter Cushing in Cash on Demand

Peter Cushing did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Harry Fordyce in Cash on Demand. 

Cash on Demand is a slight but effective thriller about a bank robber forcing a bank manager to comply with his robbery.

With the Christmas setting and the lead being a money lender, this film is in a strange way kind of reworking of the Scrooge story with Peter Cushing getting his chance to play Ebenezer Scrooge in a roundabout way as the then-modern bank manager Harry Fordyce. Peter Cushing is known best for his role in Star Wars or in various horror films, where he plays on some variation of chilling, kindly, or chilling while being kind. This is a completely different kind of performance from him as Harry Fordyce is just a man, and gives Cushing the chance to very much accentuate different aspects of his screen personality than one often sees from him. Even in the opening of the film where we see Fordyce go about his duties, it is notable that while this could've been the note for a classic cold Cushing note, Cushing actually makes much more of a variation here than that. His performance is actually almost entirely dissimilar, despite being quite effective with that known Cushing chill, this is a much more human depiction of a cold man.

And what that really means is that Cushing very much wants us to meet the manager Fordyce as a particular man but also in many ways a normal man as he comes into the bank. He has an uncaring expression about him, however an uncaring expression of a man who just doesn't care about anything other than doing his job. Cushing stare isn't penetrating rather it is just uncaring and focused upon his position. His delivery toward everyone in the bank is with a careless disregard and just a focus on business. Cushing modulates his work effectively though in portraying a man truly distant yet not nefarious in a traditional sense, just more bluntly kind of a jerk who isn't affectionate towards anyone. When an action leaves some cash missing in the bank by an employee, despite that employee having enough of a reason in his explanation, Cushing has no reaction other than uncaring disregard. His delivery is that of the bank official cutting down any notions of humanity as he is a man fixed just on keeping towards his task with the teller just being in his way. Cushing's performance though doesn't play it as overtly evil, as he certainly could've, but rather just the callousness of a man who puts the profits over people. 

Things change though as our plot begins with the entrance of a man Gore (André Morell) who claims to be there for the security of the bank yet instead is there in fact to rob the bank which he privately reveals to Fordyce. Cushing's performance is terrific even just the introduction of the man we see the coldness becomes alleviated as the man is a technical superior seemingly in the positioning around the bank and Cushing delivers a natural slight insecurity as Fordyce tries to impress the man. When the turn happens though that is even more of a switch as the hectoring Gore reveals he has Fordyce's family held captive, and they will be tortured if he doesn't comply with Gore's demands for cash. Cushing is excellent in showing the man completely and instantly thrown from his cold comfort as he becomes filled with tension and anxiety from the situation. And here is where really his setup was so important because Cushing never showed Fordyce as truly inhuman just very cold, and we see the man forced out of that cold authority with just a scared man beneath it all. Cushing is wholly genuine in reflecting the private man within the professional as his concern for his wife and child is immediate with an authentic immediate sense of real desperation. 

Gore has a complicated plan of robbing the safe which he needs Fordyce to follow every step of the way, and this is where the film becomes a two-hander of Gore purposefully pestering and mentally torturing Fordyce while Fordyce has no choice but to comply in order to save his family. Cushing really makes the movie, though Morell is quite a bit of fun in portraying just how much joy Gore gets out of this act, by creating the essential tension of a thriller of this sort. Every step of the process Cushing is 100 percent dialed in and you get the sense of the man making these split seconds decisions and the extreme nerves of the man every time they come close to failure. Cushing's performance is fascinating because, within this sense of desperation, he also begins to reveal an actual greater warmth beneath all the man. Every moment they come close to it, Cushing shows in his physical performance and with every line delivery how much the man tremendously does care about his family and is truly in pain within every moment of it. The man loses any of that cold control we saw before and just shows the very real fear of a father and husband needing to make sure his family will be safe. Cushing in every turn of the plot is exceptional in showing just how dialed in he is into the situation, making every moment far more tension-filled because within it all you see how much meaning this all has. Combine that with his reactions towards so many of Gore's pestering remarks, Cushing is rather moving even in showing the gradual sense of reflection in the man and sort of this intimate opening up of the man to having a greater sense for others around him. When he eventually pleads to note his family is all he has, Cushing is honestly powerful because in every word the sense of real love for the family but also the desperate loneliness of the man separated by that is remarkably performed. He manages to really play every scene with more than one layer in creating the sense of the immediate concern of "helping" Gore while also seeing that ever-constant anxiety combined with real a man seeing the faults he has in clear view. Cushing successfully brings you into the mind of such a cold man, in the beginning, to create some genuine empathy particularly later on when every one of his pleas is so deeply felt within Cushing's delivery. He even manages to create a convincing change of heart as at the end of the ordeal his greater sympathy to his workers, Cushing makes convincing because he's shown throughout the way the situation has broken down his reserve and forced a better man to come out of it despite it being a terrible situation. It is a terrific performance from Peter Cushing that shows he was very capable even outside of the types of performances he is most known for.