Rent Suddenly! (1954)

Crackin' Up - Suddenly! review by CH

The title is in fact a noun - a remote small town - rather than an adverb. Much happens without warning, though, in these eighty minutes as Sinatra and two other hired assassins get wind of a Presidential visit to the railroad station for transfer to a car. They, posing as Secret Service agents, arrive at the same time as a visit by the President's advance security staff makes the town's population seem to double. For all these well-handled exteriors, the focus is on a house in firing line of the railroad station. Here a widow and her young son live with her father-in-law (himself a retired security agent). In a sudden move, they are held hostage by well-dressed Sinatra and his nervous cohorts while a rifle is installed, bolted in place, ready for... well, past assassinations are mentioned, this one a decade ahead of the Book Depository.

That is the large-scale resonance of Suddenly but, without saying any more, most of the drama takes place within the house as the main killer's past becomes as pivotal as the hostages'. Everything has a part, including a recalcitrant television set, every quiet moment is as suspenseful as the outbursts, mechanical or human, which puncture them.

Not a film to describe in detail - and it has many more of these -, it is one to savour for oneself and reflect that, no mere Fifties b-movie, it shares much with, and holds its place against, later, elaborate conspiracy-driven work.

Cracking - Suddenly! review by sb

FILM & REVIEW https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047542/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1 Lewis Allen’s cracking paranoid thriller set in the small town of Suddenly. Local Sheriff Todd (Haydon) is informed The Presidents train will be stopping so he can be driven to a remote ranch. Soon the town is crawling with cops and Secret Service Men who have received a tip of an assassination attempt. A retired Secret Service man lives with his widowed daughter in law and grandson in a house overlooking the station and the FBI show up to check it out - except something isn’t quite right. They are led by John Barron (Sinatra) and are in fact the hit squad awaiting the trains arrival. They take the family and the Sheriff hostage and wait for the clock to tick round….. All manner of psychological mind games take place all set within the house - who will crack first? Sinatra is electric in the role - in it for the money but as he reveals more about himself a picture of a cold calculating psycho emerges with all manner of Nietzchien neurosis - it really was a brave career move for him and it’s one of his best performances. Solid support from Hayden and Gates and pre-figures The Manchurian Candidate by several years ……quite superb - 4/5