Suddenly (1954)

Great Film overall

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

. . . NONE DARE CALL IT TREASON. But what else CAN you call it when a sister TV channel to White House Occupant "Trump's" top Fake News target persists in screening Real Life Lone Star Presidential Assassin "L.H. Oswald's" Training Film--SUDDENLY--month in and month out? Listening to the smirking "host" talking about this historical connection, it's easy to divine the message he's trying to convey to Liberal marksmen: "Take your best shot." The rogues' gallery of howling jackals showing up like flash mobs for White House "press briefings" certainly constitute an over-crowded room, and NO ONE is allowed to yell "Fire!" in such a place. However, blanketing Our Public Airwaves with such not-so-subliminal inducements to Rabble-Rousing, Riot-Incitement, and Regicide as SUDDENLY abruptly became par for Hollywood's traitorous course on Election Night, 2016. When some deranged degenerate is prompted by SUDDENLY to attack Occupant "Trump," it will be too late to squelch Rat Turner's Rebellion. A far better course of action would be to SUDDENLY nip these Enemy Abettors in their wallets by seizing their whole shebang of Seditious Media Witch Hunter Hangouts under the RICO Organized Crime laws, letting the "Koch Brothers" buy everything for a buck so that they can clean up the whole kit and caboodle like a Brawny Paper Towel sopping up spilt milk.

HERE IS YET another film that has been completely an unknown commodity to us until recently. In spite of an obviously frugal budget, the story and the execution of the plot line proves to be quite captivating. The staging of the scenes that comprise the picture did tend to bring to mind the small screen production of a few years later, namely the ZIV Television Productions' HIGHWAY PATROL; which of course starred Broderick Crawford. Both the film and that series exploited the highways and small towns of California for realistic, yet inexpensive locations.AS FOR THE cast, it can only be called a mixed bag. It sports a mixture of talent ranging from the starring combo of Frank Sinatra and Sterling Hayden, to topp support from Nancy Gates, James Gleason and Willis Bouchey and lesser known relative newcomers Paul frees (the voice actor extraordinaire), Paul Wexler, Clark Howat and James Liburn (real life brother of Maureen O'Hara).THIS PRODUCTION BECAME a particularly important chapter in the career of Mr. Sinatra. His interpretation of a psychotic homicidal maniac hired hit man proved to many that his dramatic abilities. His Oscar winning portrayal of Private Angelo Maggio in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY was shown to be no fluke.AS FOR OUR own observations, we saw a believable, complex, even somewhat sympathetic personality in his rendering of hit man, John Baron. It was this complex or even split personality that made it even more menacing. We also detected a similiarity and possible influence of Richard Widmark's Tommy Udo in KISS OF DEATH (20th Century-Fox, 1947).THE IDEA OF an attempted assassination of a United States President seemed to be an unlikely and far fetched premise for a film; that is until nine years later when John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas. After that, the plot became common place.

Frank Sinatra proved he could make a mark in a dramatic role in the movie he did just before this one, "From Here To Eternity." He proves something else here, that he could dominate a film doing same.Sinatra is basically the whole show here, a cold killer named Baron who sets his sights on the President of the United States. He and two henchmen pull into the town of Suddenly, California and set up a sniper's nest in a hillside home occupied by war widow Ellen Benson (Nancy Gates), her father-in-law Pop (James Gleason), and her son Pidge (Kim Charney). Only the town sheriff (Sterling Hayden) knows the score, but he's no good with a gunshot wound in his arm. Or so Baron figures.Sinatra seems to be playing Richard Widmark in his first and only psycho role. Thing is, it's a great Widmark impression. He's got the sneer, the giggle, and the ruthless efficiency to make this film work."One phony and she's got a kid with his throat cut," he tells the hostages. "Doesn't make much noise that way.""Suddenly" is a film of its time, hokey in places with its Norman Rockwell images and soliloquies about patriotic duty and the wrongness of murder. The director, Lewis Allen, even has Sinatra speak into the camera a couple of times to illustrate how nasty he is. The beauty of Sinatra's performance is that he sells it. He did the same with a few hokey lyrics, too.The supporting cast does an excellent job making sure you don't stop watching Sinatra. They are pretty wooden in the main. Hayden is the biggest surprise, very stiff and barking out his lines with unconvincing stentorian stiffness. Maybe he just didn't feel it; before the drama begins he's lecturing Pidge not to call his mother "she" and telling Ellen to get over being a widow and marry him already."You're diggin' a big black pit and shovin' us all down into it!" Or maybe she just don't dig sharing her precious bodily fluids with you, huh?Allen has a stiff style that accentuates the unnaturalness of such scenes, but once it gets down to Sinatra and his goons in that house the film settles into a tough-nosed, believable suspense yarn that flies by. Baron is a strange guy, who likes to think he's just doing a job but clearly enjoys the power trip he's on much more. Using this knowledge will help the sheriff; it also deepens Sinatra's character.Called a "born killer" by the sheriff, Baron just nods thoughtfully and says "yeah" without a hint of menace. When Ellen tells him he's an animal, he grins: "How do you like your roast beef, medium rare or well done?" Even the way he moves through the room shows you he has skills.Was this the real Sinatra? You kind of wonder when you finish, not just because of his hard reputation but how believable he is in the role. He never played such a villain again, which is sort of a shame. After "Suddenly," he didn't have to.

The tranquility of a small town is marred only by sheriff Tod Shaw's unsuccessful courtship of widow Ellen Benson, a pacifist who can't abide guns and those who use them. But violence descends on Ellen's household willy-nilly when the U.S. President passes through town.And a slightly psycho hired assassin John Baron finds the Benson home ideal for an ambush. It's a pretty tight movie that keeps your interest.In a way it foreshadows the Kennedy assassination.The movie also wouldn't find funding today.Too many cray no gun activists who don't get the concept of guns saving lives.Sinatra was short. And thin.He's decent in the movie, but as as good as some say.