Suddenly

In 1954, just as his career was moving into a new, mature phase, Frank Sinatra starred in this low-budget thriller that cast the affable screen performer as the vicious would-be presidential assassin John Baron. Most of the film takes place in a suburban house overlooking a train station in the normally quiet American town of Suddenly, where the president is scheduled to make a stopover. The ensuing story is more about tension and psychological sparring than action as Baron and his confederates take a family hostage, along with wounded Sheriff Tod Shaw (Sterling Hayden), who uses psychology in a desperate attempt to distract and engage Baron. Sinatra turns out to be very good at playing a cold-blooded psycho under a cool façade of easy banter and amoral philosophy. Richard Sale's script, meanwhile, hammers out a message of vigilance and military might in the face of threats against democracy, making Suddenly very much a piece of Cold War propaganda. Directed by Lewis Allen, the film became something of a cult item when it was revealed that Lee Harvey Oswald watched it a few days before assassinating President John F. Kennedy (Sinatra subsequently had it pulled from circulation). Although Suddenly sports some blemishes (and one brief moment of severe damage), the film is well-mastered, overall, from a sharp and vivid print. Blu-ray extras include two new audio commentaries (one by Frank Sinatra Jr.; the other by film historian Dr. Drew Casper), Francis Thompson's impressionistic 1957 short “N.Y., N.Y.,” and an image gallery. A strong optional purchase. (S. Axmaker)[Blu-ray Review—Nov. 1, 2016—Film Detective, 75 min., not rated, Blu-ray: $14.99—Making its latest appearance on Blu-ray, 1954's Suddenly! sports a fine transfer and a DTS-HD 2.0 soundtrack, but no extras. Bottom line: while the image quality is not better than the 2013 Image edition, this restored version presented in a wider aspect ratio makes for a different viewing experience of this minor cult film.]