I wanted to but couldn't!

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Glenn Ford and Donna Reed star in this story of a prominent rich family, because the father's in the vacuum cleaner business, making them, not selling. Because he's in the public eye and rich, his son is ripe for the taking, anyone might think. And, they can get quite a big ransom for the boy. Think again. Glenn Ford's just a little smarter than your average dad, or maybe crazier. He decides not only to not pay the ransom, half a million dollars, but instead is putting it on the head of the abductor and in effect turns the tables on him. The film starts out well and is at best a very emotional roller-coaster ride, as both Donna and Glenn break down. Donna Reed is especially good, and gives a memorable performance in one scene in particular, as she is remembering the day her baby was born. But the climax of the film is seeing Glenn Ford, live on a television broadcast, vowing to get his enemy no matter the cost. From there, the film, quite frankly, drags. The film's main attribute is the acting, as some of the dialogue throughout is awkward and unrealistic. The fact that he doesn't pay the ransom and his speech are the most distinctive things about the picture. In fact, I'm surprised they made a full film about it, because essentially there was no story to really tell. Leslie Nielsen makes his screen debut as a nosy and pushy reporter who wants a scoop. The Mel Gibson remake had a stronger ending, but at the same time makes the viewer feel as if, is this really appropriate? All in all, if you are curious about the original "Ransom," I would recommend it to see the stars in some strong acting performances, but this film is really a one-time deal.

After the young son of the wealthy owner of a vacuum cleaner company is kidnapped, the decision is made not to pay the ransom money. The film focuses on this decision and the tortured thought process behind it. The boy's eerie disappearance is portrayed quite well. You don't see it, but hear about it through two phone conversations that take place in the afternoon between the mother (Donna Reed) and the office of the exclusive private school that the boy attends, and then between the father(Glenn Ford) and the doctor's office where the boy was supposed to have been sent. Day gives way to night, the police chief arrives, then the doctor, later followed by the school's principal (in a stunning role) trying to wiggle out of any responsibility for the boy. Finally comes Leslie Nielson as the reporter for the local daily. Through it all is Juano Hernandez as the long time butler who tries his best to protect the family from a growing media frenzy. Glenn Ford's sturdy persona fits right into the part, mix of a father's emotional trauma and a business man's calculations of the odds. The speech he conveys to the public and the kidnappers via television is beautiful. As the situation unfolds important people try to influence Ford's decisions and, like the school principal, find ways out of any blame that could conceivably come there way. Rarely will one see a chief of police portrayed as such a wimp as this one is, much like the some of the cops in another really good Glenn Ford film, The Big Heat. Like other posters for this film have noted, this is an ingenious film getting excitement without the usual action. We see a man in a dark room in an armchair puffing away on a cigarette, the kidnapper, as he watches Ford's televised speech. It's quite exciting and yet is all lighting and mood. Where the boy is, no one knows, which is another part of the strategy behind this film that does a lot to make it at least more than a little disturbing. The film's major flaw, the 50's stereotyping of the characters, the house, the lifestyle, and just about everything else, doesn't doom it to the waste bin. Donna Reed is quite good in the film, much better than her part is.

I would say this is a particularly fine film that I stumbled upon and now watch whenever its on. That is very rare for a drama. Comedies, even bad ones, and sometimes musicals or sci-fi easily catch me and make me watch, A drama has a harder row to hoe.Glenn Ford is rock steady and complex. Donna Reed has equal depth and has a mother's passion that is missing from many portrayals of mothers in the 50's. Her reaction the school principal worried about bad press for her school is deeply satisfying on a gut level. You feel that you wanted to do the same thing. Other movies have shown uncharacteristic restraint by its cast. People, even mothers, get angry and lash out at morons. Ford shows the same anger bubbling much deeper in his televised "discussion" with the kidnappers/terrorists.A special mention must be paid to Juano Hernandez who is excellent as the butler who loves the family in his own way with quiet loyalty and respect which they share for him. Be sure to catch him in "Intruder in the Dust". Weird title that makes it sound like western but is far more interesting and unusual than an oater.One strange thing that I don't hear mentioned is the bother's (Ainslie Pryor) reaction to the whole thing. To me, he seems to have far more vested in paying the ransom than a loving uncle. I get the feeling he helped plan the kidnapping and wants his brother to pay off. When that doesn't happen, he is not supportive but still tries to get him to change his mind. Strange. Maybe he gave the mother the newspaper so she would turn against Ford, then takes her in when she leaves him. His whole role in this movie seems to be in getting money paid. Maybe I'm too suspicious.

There certainly seem to be very mixed perceptions of this film posted here by the various reviewers. It is perhaps the film's greatest strength that it does manage to entertain despite some serious flaws. Indeed, my family and I enjoy this film very much, perhaps because there is so much wrong with it that generates discussion.For starters, I'll address "realism". The depiction of the Stannard family is no more realistic than the Cleavers, the Nelsons, or any other exceedingly unbelievably perfect white upper-middle-class family that would be depicted on 1950's television; that is to say, there is no such animal as this, then or now. At the beginning of the story, the Stannard's grade-school age boy has been going about the house destroying the furniture to salvage wood for his backyard clubhouse, and for this he receives nothing more than a lighthearted and very amused reprimand from his father. This is realism? Had the story continued on dealing only with the perfect family life of the perfect Stannards, it would have been intolerable.But, as you know, their boy is kidnapped. Unlike Ron Howard's rather inferior remake, this original screenplay never attempts to tell us who kidnapped the child or what their motivation might have been. Rather than a plot hole, this serves to increase the anxiety we share with the family, as these are questions they have no answers to either. And it's really rather irrelevant. The Stannard's live quite well, even by unrealistic 1950's white TV family standards, the potential money alone is all the motivation required for a kidnapping.It is at this point in the film that we crash headlong into its biggest flaw. The treatment of Donna Reed's character, Mrs. Stannard, is deplorable, even in a time period when women were routinely portrayed as little more than drooling idiots. Seemingly greater than the concern for the kidnapped child is the concern that his mother might suffer an unchecked display of emotion. Indeed, the doctor has been summoned with his narcotics and she is promptly doped up even before the police have arrived! The only excuse offered for this disturbingly abusive misogynistic behavior is that "she carried that child in her body" and the father did not. Good Lord! As Mrs. Stannard remains in a drugged stupor for the remainder of the film, from this point on her character becomes little more than an annoying distraction. This portrayal of women as childish morons who cannot handle their own emotions is both shockingly sexist and insulting. Why is it that almost no one would pass up an opportunity to denigrate the portrayal of African Americans or Hispanics in old films, yet this treatment of women rarely rates a mention? I certainly hope this is not realism, as I should hope the family's seeming inability to bar unwanted tabloid vultures from the privacy of their own home is not considered "realism" either. The police were on hand, they could have handily ejected such unwelcome nuisances at any time with a mere request from the one remaining coherent parent.Once we get past some of this freakishly surrealistic activity, the meat of the story does tackle some intriguing questions, and does make some attempt to deal with the family's anguish as well as the father's bold decision not to cave into the fear inflicted upon them by the kidnappers. Ultimately, it is these thought provoking larger issues that give the film it's value, as the Stannard's particular kidnapping seems to be suddenly resolved with no explanation whatsoever.This is an entertaining film, relatively safe family viewing (if you don't mind explaining to your kids why they shot mommy full of dope at the drop of a hat), and should certainly generate some lively discussion.