If you liked The Manchurian Candidate, you're not going to want to miss out on Suddenly. Suddenly is the name of a small American town, but it's also a metaphor for the plot, which is reflected well in Lewis Allen's tense direction and Richard Sale's smart screenplay.Nancy Gates is a widow, trying to raise her young son properly while falling in love with Sterling Hayden, the town sheriff. How can she teach her son that guns are bad, because his father died in the war, but the man vying to become his stepfather uses a gun to keep the peace in town? While that isn't the main plot, it's the underlying theme and the motivation behind her character. The President of the United States is slated to pass through Suddenly as a good-will gesture to small time Americana, and just before his stop, three strangers arrive in town. The leader of the group is Frank Sinatra, and he charms his way into Nancy Gates's home. Then—suddenly—Frank and his gang are holding the family hostage as they prepare to assassinate the president.The film is very tense, and an extremely entertaining ride. I wouldn't bother to pop corn during this one; you probably won't look away from the screen long enough to grab a handful. Frank Sinatra does an excellent job as the slightly-psycho assassin; he's not over-the-top, but he's sufficiently scary so the audience doesn't expect him to start singing. I liked this movie a lot, but if you don't think you'll like seeing Ol' Blue Eyes as the bad guy—even though the movie is in black-and-white—you might want to rent From Here to Eternity instead.

Prior to watching SUDDENLY, I had no idea that the 'home invasion' thriller existed before the 1970s. I thought the genre had its origin in gritty films like Sunday IN THE COUNTRY, FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE, and STRAW DOGS, but it turns out that SUDDENLY had a stab at the genre long before those movies, and just so happened to do a very good job of it too.The film features a snarling, hissable turn from Frank Sinatra who is surprisingly efficient as the cold-blooded hit-man who will do anything to complete his job. The rest of the cast are almost as good in their clearly-defined roles, from the brave but foolish kid whose role is pivotal to the story, to the patriotic grandfather and even the dumb TV repair guy.Sure, SUDDENLY has dated in a few respects, and it's doubtlessly not as thrilling as it once was due to a new threshold in on-screen violence. But British director Lewis Allen really knows what he's doing here and he packs his film with suspense and tension where you never know what violent act will take place next. The last twenty minutes of the piece are particularly gripping, rounding off an unexpected gem of a thriller.

In a town called Suddenly--which might pass for any small Midwestern town--little of note happens. But the normally quiet Mayberry gets more than its share of action and attention on this Saturday.The President of the U.S. is scheduled to arrive via train, so the Secret Service get there first to reconnoiter the train station and the properties that overlook it.It would be a shame to reveal too many details, but some locals get involved in a suspenseful showdown that might easily serve as the basis for a Hitchcock film.I would not call this film noir, but it is filmed in B&W. It is a psychological drama which delves into post-war issues.Frank Sinatra turns in a rare performance as the villain and he's rather good at it. Nancy Gates plays a widow who inadvertently enters the cross-hairs of the villain's plan. She delivers a strong performance as a mother whose primary motivation for living is the protection of her young son.Various political messages can be read into the plot. No matter which subtext one advocates, this is a story about courage. Maternal courage. Patriotic courage. And the behaviors that are often mistaken for being courageous.

Frank Sinatra's legion of fans who had seen him sing with the Harry James and Tommy Dorsey Bands in the late '30s and early '40s, and those bobby-soxers who had swooned as "The Voice" performed at NYC's Paramount Theater from December '42 to February '43, must have been struck with dumb disbelief as they watched him in the 1954 thriller "Suddenly." And indeed, his appearances in such lighthearted (albeit excellent) musical fare as "Anchors Aweigh" (1945), "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" (1949) and "On the Town" (1949, and one of the greatest of all Hollywood musicals), and his dramatic role as Maggio in 1953's "From Here to Eternity," for which he won a well-deserved Best Supporting Actor Oscar, could hardly have prepared viewers for what was to come. In "Suddenly," Sinatra portrays not only a psychotic ex-soldier, but one who is plotting to assassinate the president of the United States, and slit the throat of anyone who gets in his way...including children! It might be the most despicable role that Sinatra ever essayed, and--no surprise--was a complete success for the actor, whose career was thought to be washed up after his vocal cords hemorrhaged abruptly in 1952.The film transpires in the sleepy little town of Suddenly, where life proceeds so slowly that we hear a local cop in the film's opening scene tell a driver that the town council is thinking of changing its name to Gradually. But all that, uh, suddenly changes when town sheriff Tod Shaw (still another sterling performance from the always dependable Sterling Hayden) learns that the U.S. president himself (Eisenhower, presumably) will be arriving by train at 5 P.M., en route to a fishing vacation. Secret Service agents descend on the town in advance, and so does a car driven by John Baron (Sinatra) and two other men. This trio claims to be F.B.I. agents, and takes over a house with a commanding view of the train depot. Although they tell the home's occupants--a war widow named Ellen Benson (Nancy Gates, who many viewers may recall from the great 1956 sci-fi film "World Without End"), her 8-year-old son, Pidge, and her father-in-law, "Pop" Benson (perhaps too coincidentally, a former Secret Service agent himself under Calvin Coolidge, and played by the wonderful character actor James Gleason)--that they are only trying to maintain security, their real intentions are soon revealed. Before long, the entire household, plus Sheriff Shaw, are being held hostage in the small home, while the living-room clock ticks its way toward 5:00 and the fulfillment of Baron's assassination plot....Clocking in at a remarkably compact 77 minutes, "Suddenly" confines most of its action to a single claustrophobic set: the Bensons' living room. The film is somewhat reminiscent of the great Humphrey Bogart films "Key Largo" (1948), in which Edward G. Robinson and his thugs take over a hotel during a hurricane, and 1955's "The Desperate Hours," in which Bogey and HIS gang take over Fredric March's home to elude the cops. In "Suddenly," of course, the stakes are much higher, and director Lewis Allen--who had previously helmed such wonderful films as "The Uninvited" (1944) and "So Evil, My Love" (1948)--manages to squeeze every drop of possible suspense out of this scenario. Although the story does not proceed in strict "real time," as in 1952's "High Noon," that wall clock surely does manage to ratchet up the tension. The picture features still another solid score from composer David Raksin, though of course nothing he ever did could quite compare to his immortal theme for that classiest of film noirs, "Laura" (1944). The picture's script, by Richard Sale, is simply outstanding, with great tough-guy talk and psychological insight. We really get to know what makes Baron tick during the course of the film, and what we learn is not pretty. The product of an "unmarried" mother and a "dipso" father, Baron claims that he was a lost nothing of a man until the Army gave him a gun and taught him how to kill. Inordinately proud of the 27 "Jerries" he killed at Cassino and the Silver Star he earned as a result (he mentions that darn decoration at least four times as a sort of apologia), Baron has since become a professional killer, truly believing that the possession of a gun makes him a sort of god, and declaring to Ellen at one point "Show me a guy with feelings and I'll show you a sucker." He has no political reasons for offing the prez, and as few qualms; the $500,000 he is being paid for the job is reason enough. He is a completely cold-blooded, amoral creature, slapping Pidge about and kicking Shaw in his bullet-broken arm (ouch!), and Sinatra plays the part brilliantly. Scorning the men who shot Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley, Baron declares that HE will be the first assassin of a U.S. president to get away with it...and the viewer almost believes him! The juicy dialogue between this psychopath and the sheriff, and how overprotective mom Ellen comes to realize the necessity of a little well-placed violence, constitute the heart and soul of this hugely entertaining and quite gripping film."Suddenly" is currently available on a very nice-looking DVD from Legend Films, which spares the viewer the necessity of watching what is most likely (based on my previous experience) a crummy-looking print from Alpha Video. The DVD also comes with a colorized version, which I have not watched on general principles (don't get me started on how I feel about colorization!). Still, whichever version you choose to watch, I can guarantee a thrilling ride...and perhaps a revelatory performance from Frank Sinatra. To reference his rendition of "The Lady Is a Tramp" from 1957's "Pal Joey," it is MUCH better than "oke"....