Suddenly (1954)

Suddenly is a small town where not much happens; as the film opens police officer jokes to as passing motorist that they are considering renaming it 'Gradually'… that is about to change. The president is due to arrive in town at five o'clock on a secret train and there is a suggestion that somebody may be planning to assassinate him between Suddenly and his ultimate destination. Preparations for his security are made as the State Police and Secret Service work to secure all buildings overlooking the station. By a remarkable coincidence the head of the Secret Service knows Peter 'Pop' Benson, the owner of the house overlooking the station, so he and the sheriff go to ensure it is safe… unfortunately three assassins, posing as FBI agents are already there along with the 'Pop', his widowed daughter, Ellen, and her son 'Pidge'. The agent is killed and the sheriff wounded; John Baron, the leader of the killers, says that he will murder Pidge if any of them do anything to stop him shooting the president.This is a solid little thriller; it might not be packed with action but there is plenty of tension. There are also more 'good guys' killed than one might expect from a film of this era. The plot is fairly simple; we know exactly who is good and who is bad; this is not a problem though. The cast does a solid job although it is Frank Sinatra who really stands out; he does a great job as Baron; a genuinely menacing villain… not what one expects from Ol' Blue Eyes. Things are a little far-fetched at times; especially as the captors turn the tables on the villains in the final scene. There are also some old fashioned attitudes that look dated today; notably the sheriff, who is trying to woo Ellen Benson, interfering with the way she brings up her son… sometimes to enjoy older films one must be willing to overlook such things. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to fans of Frank Sinatra and '50s thrillers in general.

Lewis Allen's "Suddenly" is no masterpiece but it's a great little B-Movie. It's about an assassination attempt on the life of the US president during a stopover in a small Californian town. It was written by Richard Sale and it's a nice, tight little suspenser. Part of the appeal is that the assassin is none other than Frank Sinatra, (very good, a year after he won the Oscar for "From Here to Eternity"). The good guy is Sterling Hayden, more often cast as the villain. He's the town sheriff and the last thing he needs is for the president to be killed in his town. A lot of it takes place in the house Sinatra and his fellow assassins hole up in and which, coincidentally, is also the home of Hayden's love interest, Nancy Gates, and her father-in-law James Gleason, himself a former secret service agent. There are holes in the plot but they are easily overlooked. This is one film that deserves its reputation.

For his entire career, Frank Sinatra remained the skinny kid (and later skinny legend) with a voice that made you believe in God. That voice, that voice, was and is one of the many wonders the entertainment industry has given us over the years. Throughout the 1940s, he was placed in throwaway musical comedies that only continued to paint him as a singer first and foremost — but the 1950s changed all that typecasting stuff.Beginning with his stunning performance in 1953's From Here to Eternity, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, audiences were introduced to Frank Sinatra The Actor; he was no longer just a singer who decided that headlining movies would be a fun side-gig. Today, only the nerdy cinephiles seem to appreciate his stunning acting abilities, while the rest of the world paints him as Old Blue Eyes. Either party will find themselves bathing in a hearty basin of nostalgia, but exploring all of his occupational triumphs is nothing short of astonishment. Singers turned actors were and are never ever this talented.Suddenly continued his "serious actor" path, placing him in a low-budget thriller and having much of the focus lie single-handedly upon him. Like Dial M for Murder, much of the action takes place in a single location — a house in the suburbs — and like The Manchurian Candidate, the assassination of the president may or may not be the climax. At just 77 minutes, it's a tight, to-the-point psychological exercise, giving Sinatra one of his juiciest roles as the assassin. It's an unexpected character for an actor who always played the hero.In Suddenly, Sinatra portrays John Baron, a psychopathic sniper whose arrival coincides with that of the country's leader, who is stopping by the small town of Suddenly, California for a visit. John's intent is to ambush him and successful exterminate him, with payoff. Finding a perfect safe house in the suburbs, Baron and his men hold the Benson family hostage until they meet the point of no return.The film is a minor work in Sinatra's filmography, but it's also an important one. It shows a performer unafraid to explore low-budget but challenging territories, curious about his abilities and willing to see how far he could go. As Baron, Sinatra is surprisingly formidable, managing to make us forget about his charming past and replace it with unbridled fear. Perhaps Suddenly is too stagy for my taste, but it manages to be taut and pulse-pounding when we least expect it. This isn't a film concerned with deep characterizations or in your face action — it is a film about acting, writing, and directing, and how the three characteristics can take you to places you never thought you would have traveled to before. Read more reviews at petersonreviews.com

This is a painful dog to sit through. There is the 50s corny crap and an incredibly stupid script that is more talky than any French movie.Sinatra must be the stupidest assassin alive in this; any ordinary one would have simply killed everyone in the house or tied them up and gagged them!!....no, he engages in constant blather with the hostages. The hostages cleverly play on Sinatra's vanities and psychology to get him to become unglued.You can see the ho hum plot tricks a mile away. The gun in the top drawer of a dresser that looks like the toy gun the kid has etc....The actor playing the kid immediately got on my nerves with in the first 2 minutes of the show and half way through the film I began to hope all the hostages would be shot--starting with him and the old man. Unfortunately only the TV repair man got it.The denouement was actually funny....when the TV repairman has wired the table with 4,000 volts and the helper of Sinatra gets electrocuted and starts firing the gun like a machine gun from electric shocks to his convulsing fingers.As another reviewer stated garbage like this ages badly....since you not only have garbage but the 50s corny blather with it.DO NOT RENT DO NOT WATCH unless you want to be tortured for an hour and 15 minutes (it's only good point it is short).