Watch Suddenly For Free

The Worst Film Ever

How sad is this?

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Absolutely Brilliant!

. . . the U.S. Secret Service failed to cancel the President's visit to a Western whistle-stop hamlet when dying Los Angeles Stool Pigeon "Smiley Bitters" told them that a mob-connected gunman was going to pop the Commander-in-Chief there within a few hours. If you consider that "John Baron's" Real Life mob buddies actually DID rub out our beleaguered JFK less than a decade later from behind the Grassy Knoll, should SUDDENLY be seen as a dress rehearsal for the Debacle in Dallas? Perhaps it is Standard Operating Procedure for the taxpayer-funded Presidential Protectors NEVER to bow before any threat--foreign or domestic--but rather to trot out our Oval Office Occupants like so many dead ducks in a shooting gallery, knowing that there are plenty more billionaires available who'd be only too eager to have "Hail to the Chief" played for themselves. Probably any prudent Leader should carry an "insurance policy" in the form of a back-up detail of Mossad or KGB agents, so as not to become just another road-kill statistic like JFK.

Never look at small towns as just another Hicksville. Many of our greatest Americans were born in the sticks, and many more are to come out of there. Events occur that make the history books, whether triumph or tragedy, and in Suddenly, U.S.A., there is the possibility of a tragedy. Bit more matter what happens, Suddenly won't forget what happened...quickly.What sounds like an Abbott and Costello skit occurs in the opening scene where a passer through asks friendly deputy Sterling Hayden why the town has that name. Hayden explains that things really used to happen there thank to organized crime, but now pretty much nothing happens. That's about to change, and one family will feel the brunt of it, thanks to "Old Blue Eyes".Yes, this is Sinatra as you've never seen him before, a total bad guy, posing as a government agent to get into the home of widowed Nancy Gates. He's waiting for a train, not to catch, but to shoot at, and his target is the president of the United States. Gates' young son isn't afraid to stand up to him, and Sinatra belts him. There's no gentility here, so be prepared.Like the ticking clock in "High Noon', the tension rises until the thermometer breaks. It's similar in theme to Sinatra's later masterpiece" The Manchurian Candidate", threatening American piece of mind with an act of violence by one of our own. James Gleason is great as Gates' worried father-in-law, with Kim Charney pretty impressive as the courageous kid. Some moments may have you cringe, particularly how Sinatra deals with the wounded Hayden, suffering from a broken arm. The script goes into the psychology of how Sinatra went bad, and there is no clichéd dialog to make you groan. It's tough and brutal and unapologetic, and most importantly, it makes you think.

Suddenly is a solid thriller. The premise and setting are simple but it's really intense. The president of the United States is passing through the town of Suddenly, California. But mercenary John Barron (Frank Sinatra) enters the house of Peter "Pop" Benson (James Gleason) then proceeds to hold Pop, his daughter Ellen Benson (Nancy Gates) her son Peter "Pidge" Benson (Kim Charney) and the Sheriff of Suddenly Todd Shaw (Sterling Hayden) to kill the president. Under capture Todd has to figure out a way to save the Bensons and the president. Sinatra does a good job in the role and it's one of the few times we see him as a villain. Hayden also does a good job and it's an overall good thriller.

This is a painful dog to sit through. There is the 50s corny crap and an incredibly stupid script that is more talky than any French movie.Sinatra must be the stupidest assassin alive in this; any ordinary one would have simply killed everyone in the house or tied them up and gagged them!!....no, he engages in constant blather with the hostages. The hostages cleverly play on Sinatra's vanities and psychology to get him to become unglued.You can see the ho hum plot tricks a mile away. The gun in the top drawer of a dresser that looks like the toy gun the kid has etc....The actor playing the kid immediately got on my nerves with in the first 2 minutes of the show and half way through the film I began to hope all the hostages would be shot--starting with him and the old man. Unfortunately only the TV repair man got it.The denouement was actually funny....when the TV repairman has wired the table with 4,000 volts and the helper of Sinatra gets electrocuted and starts firing the gun like a machine gun from electric shocks to his convulsing fingers.As another reviewer stated garbage like this ages badly....since you not only have garbage but the 50s corny blather with it.DO NOT RENT DO NOT WATCH unless you want to be tortured for an hour and 15 minutes (it's only good point it is short).