This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Once you get past the cliche one-joke title, this is a taut little thriller with Frank Sinatra diversifying his range by playing a near psychotic soldier-of-fortune, who with his rather simple-minded gang-of-two seeks to collect a big payday from an unknown employer by assassinating the unnamed and unseen President of the United States when the presidential train makes a need-to-know stop at a typical small-town U.S.A.Over a brief 75 minute duration, a fair amount of tension is built up as Sinatra and his gang take over a house containing a young war widow, her slightly brattish infant son and cantankerous old father in law because it apparently provides the perfect vantage point for the kill-shot though how they know that in advance I couldn't say. Also on the scene is a new suitor for the young mum, Sterling Hayden's straight-arrow peacetime cop who unfortunately gets caught up in the hostage situation when he accompanies the incoming FBI chief on a routine check of the house.What's surprising is the sheer viciousness of Sinatra's character, killing the FBI chief in cold blood, brutishly aggravating Hayden's injured arm, smacking the plucky kid about and even threatening to kill the boy. An innocent young TV repair man also finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time as he too is inveigled into the action. The plot denouement is signalled well in advance as the countdown to the fateful train arrival of the train at 5 p.m. nears.It was certainly unusual to see Sinatra play such an unredeeming character with any resemblance to Richard Widmark's early psychopathic roles no doubt being more than coincidental. It's a pity that much of the rest of the playing by the cast is rather wooden and under-rehearsed looking. The direction is rather stolid and set bound too but none of these things can stop the inexorable rise of tension as the story progresses.Frank was to make a markedly superior movie about a presidential assassination around 10 years later but this B-movie feature would have made for a watchable second feature alongside that following masterful political thriller, "The Manchurian Candidate" of course.

Sinatra may not have tried to pull this film after the JFK assasination, but when you see him with a scoped rifle aiming from an elevated position, the similarities had to haunt him. Having lived through this event, it gave me chills.

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.

Frank Sinatra's legion of fans who had seen him sing with the Harry James and Tommy Dorsey Bands in the late '30s and early '40s, and those bobby-soxers who had swooned as "The Voice" performed at NYC's Paramount Theater from December '42 to February '43, must have been struck with dumb disbelief as they watched him in the 1954 thriller "Suddenly." And indeed, his appearances in such lighthearted (albeit excellent) musical fare as "Anchors Aweigh" (1945), "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" (1949) and "On the Town" (1949, and one of the greatest of all Hollywood musicals), and his dramatic role as Maggio in 1953's "From Here to Eternity," for which he won a well-deserved Best Supporting Actor Oscar, could hardly have prepared viewers for what was to come. In "Suddenly," Sinatra portrays not only a psychotic ex-soldier, but one who is plotting to assassinate the president of the United States, and slit the throat of anyone who gets in his way...including children! It might be the most despicable role that Sinatra ever essayed, and--no surprise--was a complete success for the actor, whose career was thought to be washed up after his vocal cords hemorrhaged abruptly in 1952.The film transpires in the sleepy little town of Suddenly, where life proceeds so slowly that we hear a local cop in the film's opening scene tell a driver that the town council is thinking of changing its name to Gradually. But all that, uh, suddenly changes when town sheriff Tod Shaw (still another sterling performance from the always dependable Sterling Hayden) learns that the U.S. president himself (Eisenhower, presumably) will be arriving by train at 5 P.M., en route to a fishing vacation. Secret Service agents descend on the town in advance, and so does a car driven by John Baron (Sinatra) and two other men. This trio claims to be F.B.I. agents, and takes over a house with a commanding view of the train depot. Although they tell the home's occupants--a war widow named Ellen Benson (Nancy Gates, who many viewers may recall from the great 1956 sci-fi film "World Without End"), her 8-year-old son, Pidge, and her father-in-law, "Pop" Benson (perhaps too coincidentally, a former Secret Service agent himself under Calvin Coolidge, and played by the wonderful character actor James Gleason)--that they are only trying to maintain security, their real intentions are soon revealed. Before long, the entire household, plus Sheriff Shaw, are being held hostage in the small home, while the living-room clock ticks its way toward 5:00 and the fulfillment of Baron's assassination plot....Clocking in at a remarkably compact 77 minutes, "Suddenly" confines most of its action to a single claustrophobic set: the Bensons' living room. The film is somewhat reminiscent of the great Humphrey Bogart films "Key Largo" (1948), in which Edward G. Robinson and his thugs take over a hotel during a hurricane, and 1955's "The Desperate Hours," in which Bogey and HIS gang take over Fredric March's home to elude the cops. In "Suddenly," of course, the stakes are much higher, and director Lewis Allen--who had previously helmed such wonderful films as "The Uninvited" (1944) and "So Evil, My Love" (1948)--manages to squeeze every drop of possible suspense out of this scenario. Although the story does not proceed in strict "real time," as in 1952's "High Noon," that wall clock surely does manage to ratchet up the tension. The picture features still another solid score from composer David Raksin, though of course nothing he ever did could quite compare to his immortal theme for that classiest of film noirs, "Laura" (1944). The picture's script, by Richard Sale, is simply outstanding, with great tough-guy talk and psychological insight. We really get to know what makes Baron tick during the course of the film, and what we learn is not pretty. The product of an "unmarried" mother and a "dipso" father, Baron claims that he was a lost nothing of a man until the Army gave him a gun and taught him how to kill. Inordinately proud of the 27 "Jerries" he killed at Cassino and the Silver Star he earned as a result (he mentions that darn decoration at least four times as a sort of apologia), Baron has since become a professional killer, truly believing that the possession of a gun makes him a sort of god, and declaring to Ellen at one point "Show me a guy with feelings and I'll show you a sucker." He has no political reasons for offing the prez, and as few qualms; the $500,000 he is being paid for the job is reason enough. He is a completely cold-blooded, amoral creature, slapping Pidge about and kicking Shaw in his bullet-broken arm (ouch!), and Sinatra plays the part brilliantly. Scorning the men who shot Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley, Baron declares that HE will be the first assassin of a U.S. president to get away with it...and the viewer almost believes him! The juicy dialogue between this psychopath and the sheriff, and how overprotective mom Ellen comes to realize the necessity of a little well-placed violence, constitute the heart and soul of this hugely entertaining and quite gripping film."Suddenly" is currently available on a very nice-looking DVD from Legend Films, which spares the viewer the necessity of watching what is most likely (based on my previous experience) a crummy-looking print from Alpha Video. The DVD also comes with a colorized version, which I have not watched on general principles (don't get me started on how I feel about colorization!). Still, whichever version you choose to watch, I can guarantee a thrilling ride...and perhaps a revelatory performance from Frank Sinatra. To reference his rendition of "The Lady Is a Tramp" from 1957's "Pal Joey," it is MUCH better than "oke"....