CommentsXp
Best movie ever!
BoardChiri
Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay
ChicDragon
It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.
Brenda
The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one
cricket crockett
. . . NONE DARE CALL IT TREASON. But what else CAN you call it when a sister TV channel to White House Occupant "Trump's" top Fake News target persists in screening Real Life Lone Star Presidential Assassin "L.H. Oswald's" Training Film--SUDDENLY--month in and month out? Listening to the smirking "host" talking about this historical connection, it's easy to divine the message he's trying to convey to Liberal marksmen: "Take your best shot." The rogues' gallery of howling jackals showing up like flash mobs for White House "press briefings" certainly constitute an over-crowded room, and NO ONE is allowed to yell "Fire!" in such a place. However, blanketing Our Public Airwaves with such not-so-subliminal inducements to Rabble-Rousing, Riot-Incitement, and Regicide as SUDDENLY abruptly became par for Hollywood's traitorous course on Election Night, 2016. When some deranged degenerate is prompted by SUDDENLY to attack Occupant "Trump," it will be too late to squelch Rat Turner's Rebellion. A far better course of action would be to SUDDENLY nip these Enemy Abettors in their wallets by seizing their whole shebang of Seditious Media Witch Hunter Hangouts under the RICO Organized Crime laws, letting the "Koch Brothers" buy everything for a buck so that they can clean up the whole kit and caboodle like a Brawny Paper Towel sopping up spilt milk.
John T. Ryan
HERE IS YET another film that has been completely an unknown commodity to us until recently. In spite of an obviously frugal budget, the story and the execution of the plot line proves to be quite captivating. The staging of the scenes that comprise the picture did tend to bring to mind the small screen production of a few years later, namely the ZIV Television Productions' HIGHWAY PATROL; which of course starred Broderick Crawford. Both the film and that series exploited the highways and small towns of California for realistic, yet inexpensive locations.AS FOR THE cast, it can only be called a mixed bag. It sports a mixture of talent ranging from the starring combo of Frank Sinatra and Sterling Hayden, to topp support from Nancy Gates, James Gleason and Willis Bouchey and lesser known relative newcomers Paul frees (the voice actor extraordinaire), Paul Wexler, Clark Howat and James Liburn (real life brother of Maureen O'Hara).THIS PRODUCTION BECAME a particularly important chapter in the career of Mr. Sinatra. His interpretation of a psychotic homicidal maniac hired hit man proved to many that his dramatic abilities. His Oscar winning portrayal of Private Angelo Maggio in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY was shown to be no fluke.AS FOR OUR own observations, we saw a believable, complex, even somewhat sympathetic personality in his rendering of hit man, John Baron. It was this complex or even split personality that made it even more menacing. We also detected a similiarity and possible influence of Richard Widmark's Tommy Udo in KISS OF DEATH (20th Century-Fox, 1947).THE IDEA OF an attempted assassination of a United States President seemed to be an unlikely and far fetched premise for a film; that is until nine years later when John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas. After that, the plot became common place.
ofpsmith
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.
Martin Bradley
Lewis Allen's "Suddenly" is no masterpiece but it's a great little B-Movie. It's about an assassination attempt on the life of the US president during a stopover in a small Californian town. It was written by Richard Sale and it's a nice, tight little suspenser. Part of the appeal is that the assassin is none other than Frank Sinatra, (very good, a year after he won the Oscar for "From Here to Eternity"). The good guy is Sterling Hayden, more often cast as the villain. He's the town sheriff and the last thing he needs is for the president to be killed in his town. A lot of it takes place in the house Sinatra and his fellow assassins hole up in and which, coincidentally, is also the home of Hayden's love interest, Nancy Gates, and her father-in-law James Gleason, himself a former secret service agent. There are holes in the plot but they are easily overlooked. This is one film that deserves its reputation.