Suddenly

Suddenly
Directly in the wake of his Oscar-winning comeback in From Here to Eternity, Frank Sinatra took on the role of a psychopathic hit man in this taut, low-budget film noir. The choice shows how interested Sinatra was in serious acting during the mid- to late '50s; there's nothing remotely likable about this angular, neurotic assassin. He's in the small town of Suddenly to kill the president, who is passing through on a quick train stop. Sinatra makes hostages of a local family and sheriff Sterling Hayden, and the film is basically a countdown to the president's arrival, with Sinatra's patter getting loonier as the day goes on. Aside from the interest of Sinatra's performance (very focused and downright perverse at times), and the film's place in the American noir tradition, Suddenly is uncannily prophetic on the subject of assassination. It's clear that the killer is doing it for the fame as well as the money, a theme that would crop up in later confessions of real-life killers or would-be killers. Perhaps the 1954 film was too prophetic; like Sinatra's Manchurian Candidate, this movie was pulled from circulation for years after the JFK assassination. According to Kitty Kelley's bio of Sinatra, Lee Harvey Oswald saw this film a few days before he took rifle in hand. Now in the public domain, Suddenly is generally available in cheap, scratchy prints. --Robert Horton
Customer Review: Suddenly
Shortly after his celebrated turn in "From Here to Eternity," Sinatra was cast as a cold-blooded killer in Lewis Allen's gritty thriller "Suddenly." Anticipating the Kennedy assassination by several years--Lee Harvey Oswald reportedly viewed it days before he killed JFK--"Suddenly" has the look and feel of a "B" movie quickie, but Sinatra's intensity blazes off the screen. Still thin as a reed, the actor excels as a human time bomb, while Hayden's Sheriff provides a decent, steady counterpoint. Only debit: that annoying little boy- but just focus on Ol' Blue Eyes.
Customer Review: Entertaining rubbish
Predictable ending to a typical post-war script. They are hitting you over the head without any subtlety. The theme is that pacifism doesn't work, sort of like preaching to the converted, since it is a POST-war film, not a pre-war film. A war widow spurns the advances of the town sheriff and doesn't allow her 8 year old son to play with guns. There's your pacifist, the war widow. By the end, she's ready to kill the bad guy herself. As I said, there's no subtlety to the script. It is obvious, unoriginal, completely predictable, and therefore juvenile and uncreative. Sinatra's acting is no big deal. It's laughable the way people rave about it. It just shows that any silly old nonsense can impress people. He's not terrible. He's just a non-actor doing a more or less decent enough job in a silly script. You can't compare his acting to his singing. He was an exceptional stylist as a singer, and a hack as an actor, as you should be able to see in this movie. To compare his acting to a singer, you might say he is the Freddy Cannon of actors. You remember the guy who sang that silly song Palisades Park. Maybe you don't. You shouldn't. It's nothing, like Sinatra's acting. This film is nothing but stereotypes. I'd be ashamed of it if I had directed it. There are no real people in it. There are no believable lines in it. It's just one of those stupid stories of the early fifties to make a point, that Americans are this or that way, that we gotta shoot some bad guys. Okay, whatever. Sure we have to shoot some bad guys. You don't need to convince me. I'm not a pacifist. But I know a dopy script when I see one. I'm giving it three stars for entertainment value. Even though the movie is dopy and completely predictable, it's kind of fun to watch. That's worth a few stars. The writing gets an F, the acting gets a D, but the entertainment value gets a C plus or B minus, and it isn't hard to sit through. There's one part that is so stupid it cracked me up. Sinatra sends one of his bad guy assistants outside to check things out, when what he really wants is to keep his presence secret. So he sends out one of his bad guys to become very visible. Hahaha. And of course the bad guy is spotted and blows Sinatra's cover. That is the funniest part of this dopy movie.