review for Five Golden Hours on AllMovie

Ernie Kovacs fans will be disappointed with Five Golden Hours, a showcase that doesn't adequately show off their hero but instead allows George Sanders to steal the picture out from under him. Of course, Sanders has only a supporting role, and therefore doesn't have to struggle with the main plot line, which is too much to ask of Kovacs or almost anyone else. Hans Wilheim's screenplay is not dreadful: there are some decent laughs (though not enough) threaded throughout it, and the basic set-up is workable. But Wilheim doesn't know how to make "workable" into "magical," settling instead for "mundane" and "mechanical." That said, Kovacs is also simply not perfect casting for this tale, which requires either a character actor with great flexibility or a comic talent of a exquisite nimbleness; Kovacs is a great comic talent, but he is at once too whimsical and too earthbound for this particular role. Cyd Charisse is, alas, a bit too bland as the woman who sets all things in motion, and there's not enough chemistry between her and Kovacs. That clears the way for Sanders to wander in as an asylum inmate and show the audience the way things are supposed to be done. Individual sequences work well in the movie, so Hours isn't really terrible, but it sure isn't golden.