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Frank Sinatra, Jackie Gleason, James Gleason

Three paid hit-men arrive at a small California town to await the president's arrival by train for his annual fishing trip. Their plan is to assassinate him. To do so, they find a house on a hill with...( read more  read more... ) a great vantage point and hold the town sheriff, a widow, her father, and a young child hostage as they await to execute their plan.

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56% liked it

1,315 ratings

Unrated, 1 hr. 15 min.

Directed by: Lewis Allen

Release Date: October 7, 1954

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DVD Release Date: June 29, 2004

Stats: 84 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (84)

  • mjgildea
    January 17, 2008
    mjgildea
    Suddenly is nothing special. Sinatra's performance is pretty good as the psycho assassin and Sterling Hayden plays the hard-nosed but sometimes lovesick cop pretty well. It would've been interesting to see the roles switched but the gimmick that Suddenly had going for it would've...( read more) been lost in the shuffle. Nothing to go out of your way for but a decent way to piss away a Saturday afternoon. And contrary to what anyone tells you Suddenly is NOT film noir.
  • codyfranklin2
    July 30, 2008
    codyfranklin2
    A nice simple story about a small town sherriff (Hayden) and a family holed up with a crazy assassin (Sinatra).Great acting, dialogue and a good story until the very end, but I'm not going to let 30 seconds of film ruin the movie for me. Sinatra is amazing as a psyhco assassin wh...( read more)o will do anything for a chance to kill his target. Really enjoyable.
  • ElCochran90
    October 4, 2009
    ElCochran90
    A good suspenseful film-noir with a perfectly acted bad guy named John Baron thanks to the great Frank Sinatra. Good plot and background, OK script and a fine climax. Recommendable.

    72/100
  • drxcreatures
    April 21, 2009
    drxcreatures
    Not bad. Not great but, not bad.
  • Budgeburgess
    April 14, 2009
    Budgeburgess
    A film which explores the moral ambiguity of gun ownership without actually making its viewpoint specific, and a film made famous for its subsequent history rather than the quality of its production.

    The US president is changing trains in a small town. The local police chief is ...( read more)entrusted with the secret and given the task of making sure everything runs smoothly. Overlooking the station is the home of a widow whom the policeman is wooing - this is the 1950's, it's quite coy. He buys her son a cap pistol - she is outraged that he should be encouraging the boy to play with guns.

    But there are others about to appear who have no worries about playing with guns. Frank Sinatra plays a former soldier, a sniper in World War 2, a fractured, disturbed individual who found a role and a purpose when he had a gun in his hand ... and who is now a professional assassin intent on gunning down the president.

    In places, a tense, well-paced drama, much of the action takes place within the widow's sitting room. It can be a touch claustrophobic in places, the storyline a tad predictable, and some of the acting appears melodramatic half a century down the line.

    Not a bad film in its own right, but, even with Sinatra's presence it would likely have remained an obscure B-movie, remembered only to 'Old Blue Eyes' aficionados and film buffs had it not been watched by Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before he assassinated Kennedy.

    And suddenly the narrative and dialogue of this film ratchet up several points! The film voices the outrage of ordinary citizens at the concept of killing a president, yet, for Sinatra's character, the president is merely a figurehead, someone who will be replaced by another the instant the bullet strikes ... but that one bullet will earn him a fortune, and make him a somebody. His character is a loner, a man who only really discovered an identity in the army, a man who is searching for some purpose or direction. Did that appeal to Oswald? Did it strike a note? Did it tip the balance?

    Sinatra had the film withdrawn when he discovered the Oswald connection, and was clearly concerned that he had been an influence. And, watching the film, regardless of your position on the grassy knoll and conspiracy theories, there are some chilling aspects which invest this film with a very sinister provenance.

    As a film, as a piece of drama, it's entertaining enough and, despite its obvious age and dated style, it was one of the few films in its day to actually make guns, and toy guns at that, a matter worthy of thought, if not concern. It would be worth a watch, too, for the performance by Sinatra, which is highly polished and proves he can act the bad guy when necessary. But the Oswald association makes this something of a gratuitous classic. Watch and think.
  • LandoMcFly
    February 26, 2009
    LandoMcFly
    OK, but it's irritating how moronic Sinatra's character is for a cold-blooded killer.
  • Ghw12158
    October 14, 2008
    Ghw12158
    great cast good stuff
  • rindn5
    July 7, 2008
    rindn5
    Man, this was good...
  • tenebrous03
    December 1, 2007
    tenebrous03
    A little preachy in places and the plot is not as taut as it should be. Still, it's one of the best pro-2nd amendment movies I've ever seen.
  • RuthieGreenGirl
    August 25, 2007
    RuthieGreenGirl
    Kinda deep but in a good way

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