Suddenly

...Sinatra is great as hired assassin John Baron who's half million dollar job is to off the POTUS when his train stops in Suddenly, California.

If you've ever read Black Mask or any of the old crime pulps, Suddenly has that kind of vibe. Tough, highly stylized talk and attitude takes center stage in spite of any lick of logical behavior or plot coherence. I'm serious here, kids, the story is a mess. So, the decent 7 rating is for one reason only: Blue Eyes is that good.

A must see for Sinatra fans and a definite gripper for those who can really, really, really suspend disbelief.

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 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.

Like another user I found this movie at a "dollar store" and decided to take a chance on it. I believe the stories that this was pulled from circulation simply because I had never heard of it before. Where have they been hiding this movie?

I can believe those stories for another reason. It has an eerie feel to it ... and seemed oddly prophetic: Imagine, an attempt to kill a President from a sniper position in a window above and behind, using a military-style weapon, by a former soldier. If Oswald truly watched this movie ... one would have to wonder how HE felt about the movie. I mean, I wasn't aware of that bit of trivia until I watched the movie and THEN checked out IMDb. While watching it I could not help but draw comparisons. Brrrrrrrr. It seems plausible that Sinatra might have had similar feelings.

Sure, this is not the best movie ever made but it is a good solid 1950s movie, with a good performance by Sinatra. Yes, it is corny, but given the timeframe, that is to be expected. To be honest, I am tired of special effects and enjoy movies with an actual story and actual acting. Even corny stories and corny acting. Not a single car blew up in this movie. Wow. What a relief.

in fact some rather too well with unnecessary plot descriptions. My reactions were mixed, but SUDDENLY is worth seeing for three reasons:

1) Early Sinatra, of course. This is the kind of role he would not, to the best of my knowledge,repeat. My mother has long had a crush on him, an infatuation undimmed when she saw the film with me on P.B.S.

2) This movie is a study of the ideals and point of view of mid-1950s America. SUDDENLY was made after the Hollywood investigations of the later 1940s and whilst the McCarthy Paranoia was still going on. None of the other commentators have noted that item, but one should take note that the studio big-wigs had had the bejaysus scared out of them. American film was not only to refrain from social criticism, but was going to be a cheerleader for the essential rightness of the American Way of Life and character. SUDDENLY oozes this point of view, and I note with amused contempt the very last scene and what the two protagonists say to one another.

3) The film is a foreshadowing of what is to come in a country so sure of its social and political stability, quite accidental to be sure. Yes, the head bad guy is a nutter, but he is not the comfortable one-lone-nutter. This plot is highly organised and obviously well-financed. The unspoken They have turned to a pool of violence that is highly American -- organised crime -- to do the deed. Baron and his plotters are not ill-shaven Marxists or slanty-eyed types. They are as American as the Colt 45, and they are willing to do the unthinkable for enough money, and in the leader's case, the simple thrill of bagging someone.

I do not know whether SUDDENLY "rises" to the level of Film Noir, but it had some disturbing things for postWar Americans. Perhaps that is why it is not well known in the Sinatra gallery, and indeed I had never heard of it until about six years ago.