Suddenly

source: Suddenly

This is a hopelessly dated movie. It is poorly written and horribly acted with bush-league direction. It reminds me of those 1940s Saturday matinee serials. The dialog is corny, a natural side-effect of the 1950's, I suppose. The female roles are mellow-dramatic, another side-effect. Even trying to cut some slack for that, the acting is just plain bad. I think Sinatra did ok, but even the timing on the dialog for other actors was off at times, making it more characteristic of a high school play than a Hollywood production. Time could be better spent with another movie.

Agonisingly bad. Proves yet once again that rubbish ages badly. What is supposed to be serious ends up like The Marx Brothers meet 'Turkey Shoot', 'Psycho Ward' and 'Last Man Standing'. To think Sinatra made 'From Here to Eternity' only the year before defies the imagination. But given the nature of Hollywood at the time he was not taken seriously and still had to sing for his supper, Oscar or not. The director had no idea of feature film action - as his CV ultimately shows. TV westerns and cop shows to the end. The final scene is the worst. * * * MAJOR SPOILER * * * The final shootout scene is totally hysterical. As the Presidential train approaches the station, the sniper (and after all the buildup and moral/emotional twaddle before, it isn't even the psycho Sinatra plays who is to be the shooter!!) is electrocuted. He fires his rifle wildly all over the place - on automatic, resulting in a brief gun battle when police return fire. Then we see two seconds later in a close up when Sinatra picks up the rifle from the dead man, despite the long magazine (to give the impression it is a self-loading rifle), it appears to be a bolt action piece, set up for a left-handed rifleman!! Sinatra's demise shortly thereafter is totally unbelievable, pathetically amateur even. The wounded sheriff, Sterling Hayden throws an ASHTRAY!! at him while he aims the rifle. A geriatric then tries to tackle him when he turns around. And the kid shoots wide, misses and throws the revolver across the room. Meanwhile Sinatra, still obsessed for 'regime change', picks up the rifle again and aims...Only to be shot by the lady of the house. And again, using the same revolver, by the sheriff. Directed by Kurosawa, the wounded cop would have rushed the sniper through a hail of bullets before bulldozing him through the window, both to fall screaming to their deaths. In short, a bad script, badly directed. The only hope may be that someone will do a straight-to-DVD remake, still set in the 1950's, with Mickey Rourke as the psycho. Sinatra proves here that (like rough diamond Lee Marvin) he can be totally hopeless with a bad script and director. Or as we have seen in other work (for both men) totally brilliant and riveting when under the control of a great director with vision and the script to match.

Pure suspense and entertainment in "Suddenly!" Sinatra superb as was the complete cast. Excellent direction by Lewis Allen. The formula, of course, is hostages held in terror by gunmen with Sinatra as their leader. He is going to snipe the president from the window of the captives house. Certainly one of the better Film Noir productions.

The movie focuses US President protected by Secret Service (Willis Bouchey as Chief agent) who passes through a small and peaceable town called Suddenly where only the sheriff (Sterling Hayden) executes the law . One house inhabited by a grandfather (James Gleason) , a widow (Nancy Gates) and son is ideal place for a criminal scheme by means of an ambush , designed and pulled off by ominous murderers commanded by a ruthless psycho assassin (Frank Sinatra). The film has got emotion , strain , suspense , thriller and although is mostly developed on interior scenarios , it doesn't make boring neither tiring . Release was withdrawn from circulation for the Dallas assassination (1963) because of the events are pretty similar . Frank Sinatra (JFK's friend) as producer ordered the retaining copies and the movie was forgotten , however long time later was issued in video market and obtained a lot of success . Frank Sinatra's interpretation is top-notch as the cruel and brutal killer , his acting is magnificent , he's the best . Attractive Nancy Gates is the pacifist widow who hates the guns and embittered for her husband's death during WWII . Sterling Hayden interprets properly a kind and valiant police believer of the ¨American way of life¨ . James Gleason as stiff and rigid veteran is very fine . Atmospheric cinematography and agreeable musical score by David Raksin (author of Laura's score) . The motion picture was well directed by Lewis Allen (he directed some noir classic films). Rating : Interesting , worthwhile seeing and it will appeal to Frank Sinatra fans.

This tense, relatively well-crafted little thriller dispenses with frills or padding, and tells its story in a straightforward way that works pretty well. Once it sets up the story, it maintains the tension carefully enough to make up for some plot holes and one-dimensional characters. The focus remains almost entirely on the story, and the characters are never developed very deeply. The three main roles are rather well-cast, though, and Frank Sinatra, Sterling Hayden, and James Gleason each deliver what their roles call for. Although implausible at some points, the story is otherwise well-constructed, and it moves at a good pace. Many film-makers are tempted to inject superfluous material into this kind of story, and this is an example showing that it usually works better to keep it simple. While nothing extraordinary, it works more than well enough to be worth watching.

Frank Sinatra was certainly one of the greatest singers of our time. He was also a fine actor as well, he won an Academy Award for From Here To Eternity. This was the first film he was in after he won his Oscar and he proves it was not a fluke. He is absolutely chilling as a crazed cold blooded assassin who is out to kill the President. The only other actor who did a better job in this type of role is John Malkovich in In The Line Of Fire. This is a little known classic that really showcases Sinatra's acting talents. I think that this film and The Manchurian Candidate are the best films he ever made.

SUDDENLY was, I suspect, meant to rebut Senator Joe McCarthy and prove, gosh darn it, Hollywood loves America, loves guns, hates pacifism, and pledges allegiance. You'll get that message in the first five minutes, and every few minutes all the way to the unsurprising end. There's a place for cornball movies with a message, but this movie is so cornball it's almost camp. The main message is that guns are necessary, and I don't argue or even disagree (I own two). But this message is hammered home over and over again, along with the goodness of cops and the greatness of America and the virtue of ordinary Americans. And again I'm not disagreeing, just bored silly -- the schmaltz drips off everything here, like pouring a whole bottle of syrup over a few pancakes. Frank Sinatra is excellent as the bad guy, though his scripted lines are frequently absurd. The dialogue is clumsy and clunky -- real people don't speak like this, and never did. Sterling Hayden has never seemed more wooden, and his obsession with the town's young widow is downright creepy and cries out for a restraining order.

When the President decides to pass through the small town of Suddenly on route to a fishing trip, the town's police and chief officials rise to meet the challenge of assuring his protection as there have been rumors of an assassination attempt. The hired guns meanwhile make plans of their own. They cleverly trick their way into the home of the best house in town from which to try and carry out their assassination plot - the house of Pop Benson, respected citizen with an house upon an hill that overlooks the President's planned arrival destination. Now only an handful of hostages stand between the President and doom...can they in some way warn him in time? Frank Sinatra steals the show here as the ruthless criminal mastermind behind the want-to-be assassins - a man named John Baron. He is downright brutal and nasty in the role--an utterly detestable villain who does remind us the it was the army that created him and made him into a killer or maybe deep down, it's just that he was always a killer at heart. An outstanding multi-dimensional performance from Sinatra. Sterling Hayden meanwhile plays the idealistic police sheriff Tod Shaw, who believes in America and the American way and supports unquestioningly the system and will do whatever it takes to preserve the America he believes is right and just. He too served in the military to protect rights and freedoms and now carries on the good fight as Suddenly's sheriff. An interesting contrast of two extremes with the pacifist minded Ellen Benson (played here by Nancy Gates), her becoming a widow after her husband got killed in the war, finally forced to take a stand at the film's climax. Daring for its time, this film deals with surprisingly intense subject matter for the early 1950s. Quite good.

This is another of these films that a friend thought was great, so I went out and rented it, expecting more than what was delivered. It's certainly not what it's lived up to be, by either my friend or by critics in general. Frank Sinatra and Sterling Hayden were fairly interesting, and it was refreshing to see a patriotic line or two, but that was about it. The story had NO credibility! It was just so unrealistic it was embarrassing and insulting to watch, with very dated dialog. At least it was a short film. They didn't go overboard in dragging it out and making it even more talky and hokey.