This cheapie suspense thriller stars Frank Sinatra as a hood out to assassinate the president at a small train station in the nowheresville town of Suddenly, USA. He holes out in the home of a salty veteran (James Gleason), a home that offers the perfect vantage point from which to carry out the plan. A small group of townspeople, including the veteran's daughter and the town sheriff (Sterling Hayden), who have been taken hostage by Sinatra's group, feverishly try to hatch a plan to foil the assassination attempt while keeping themselves safe.
The film's impact is blunted by the performance of Sinatra, who tries hard to muster up some menace but isn't up to the task, and some clunky direction, especially in the film's climax, when it should be at its most suspenseful. On the other hand, it is an interestingly cynical film from the 50s, and has a disillusioned attitude about war and the violence it breeds in a decade when other films either pretended the war never happened or treated it like a heroic fairy tale. "Suddenly" suggests that the violence inherent in men can infect small-town America just as easily as it can the country's urban jungles, probably not a very welcome message during a period when vast numbers were fleeing those very jungles for the peace and quite of more rural suburbs.
Grade: B-
The film's impact is blunted by the performance of Sinatra, who tries hard to muster up some menace but isn't up to the task, and some clunky direction, especially in the film's climax, when it should be at its most suspenseful. On the other hand, it is an interestingly cynical film from the 50s, and has a disillusioned attitude about war and the violence it breeds in a decade when other films either pretended the war never happened or treated it like a heroic fairy tale. "Suddenly" suggests that the violence inherent in men can infect small-town America just as easily as it can the country's urban jungles, probably not a very welcome message during a period when vast numbers were fleeing those very jungles for the peace and quite of more rural suburbs.
Grade: B-