WHY SUDDENLY?

Why Suddenly? Fair enough question. My wife keeps asking me why I like such a "dumb movie," so I'll try to answer it. Two things come to mind: The fifties and the Kennedy Assassination. Let me explain.

First off, Suddenly looks familiar. In capturing Newhall, California, on film during the spring of 1954, Suddenly recreates my own childhood growing up in Silver Spring, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. The buildings, the cars, just the way things look in Suddenly, all seem exactly the way I remember them. I even remember those times in black and white for some reason. We had no American Theater, but I did spend endless Saturday afternoons at the Langley Theater with my two brothers watching cheesy science fiction double features like Queen of Outer Space and Rocketship XM. So in a way, I can readily identify with Pidge and feel totally at home in his town.

The second reason Suddenly resonates with me so deeply is the obvious parallels to the Kennedy Assassination. My father worked at the White House in 1963 and I vividly remember hearing about the president being killed from my bus driver as I left school that Friday afternoon. I was ten years old at the time and it is something I'll never forget.

Beyond that, Suddenly is simply an enjoyable, well-written, and exciting film to watch. I think Sterling Hayden brings a lot to the character of Tod Shaw, giving him an everyman quality while still retaining the stature of a true screen hero. And while I'm not a Frank Sinatra nut, I think he did great job bringing John Baron to life. Sure, the film presents pacifism as unworkable and reeks of mainstream sexism, but the rest of the cast are all pros, and even the obscure parts are well done and believable. Plus, it's got an old Nash. What more do you want?

The film stands up to repeated screenings because it works on so many different levels. Historically, Tod's inability to accept Ellen's point of view must have played well to 1954 audiences, where Korea, Red China and Atomic Spy cases were current fixations. Fueled by the conformity of the Eisenhower years and the McCarthy Investigations (before which actor Hayden, a former Communist Party member, reluctantly named names) the idea of fighting violence with violence was beyond questioning. Baron must have chilled audiences to the bone in his day, but looking back fifty years, his psychotic portrayal mostly consists of leering at the camera, slapping young Pidge across the face, and thinking the unthinkable. This isn't to take anything away from his performance. He's good, as is the rest of the cast. It's just that Baron is truly a product of his time, and times, for better or worse, have changed. Compared to today's creeps, both on screen and off, John Baron doesn't seem all that bad.

However, the film's moral premise of right and wrong hasn't aged a bit, regardless of whether you buy into it or not. With the threat of terrorism hitting a raw nerve and Americans overwhelmingly in favor of a violent approach to solving their problems, most would recognize Sheriff Tod Shaw as a relatively modern hero, even if a bit stuck in a sexist rut.

Suddenly raises a whole range of interesting propositions: What do you do when violence comes home? Is it moral - or even possible - not to get involved? Is it moral to kill so that others might live? Are some people just "born killers," beyond any means of reason or rehabilitation, and is society partly to blame? And finally, is there a way to oppose violence without compromising your principles? Suddenly takes these complex questions and attempts to answer them with the subtlety of a loaded six-shooter.

Compare this approach to a film like Witness (1985), where the question of guns and violence is answered by a community of Amish pacifists. In that film, a rough but basically good cop, John Booker (Harrison Ford), ultimately learns the value of nonviolence and realizes that it takes just as much courage to not pull the trigger as it does to blast away. Of course in Witness the bad guys were greedy and desperate but not psychotic, so when Detective Book asks the gang's surrounded ringleader "Where does it end?," the bad guy drops his gun and gives up, recognizing Book's moral premise. Suddenly's John Baron, on the other hand, would have experienced no such catharsis and would have answered Book and the rest of the Amish farmers with a hail of hot lead; his psychosis having already gone too far. How pacifism must ultimately deal with this situation remains an open question.

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CONTRADICTIONS: Hey, that don't make sense!

One of the best things about watching a movie is noticing when things don't quite add up. When that happens you're not just a spectator, but an active participant. If a film is really bad, this can be your only incentive to stay till the bitter end, but in Suddenly, these slip-ups just make it that much more enjoyable to watch. See if you recognize these "Hey, that don't make sense!" moments.

A promise is a promise, sort of
In what seems to be a broken promise to Tod not to use his gun for anything unlawful, Pidge stands at the very window Baron will later use to try to kill the president and shoots his toy gun at some police cars, declaring, "I got 'em all!" This bizarre behavior is never explained.
Dude, where's my yard?
	This is the Benson home as seen from the train station early in the film. Notice the greenery? To the right is supposed to be Baron's view of the train station from the front window of the same house. What happened? In the film, Baron guesses the distance to be 200 yards. Well, look on the bright side: at least now no one has to mow all that grass.
"Ironman" Bebop
	In this scene Bebop leaves the station and runs to get the sheriff to tell him of the urgent telegram. In the film the police station is right around the corner. In reality, it's in a whole other town. The train station is in Saugus, while the police station is in Newhall, a distance of just over two miles, yet Bebop arrives at the police HQ hardly out of breath. At least the sheriff was nice enough to give him a ride back to the depot.
What did you say your name is?
When Baron asks Jud, the TV repairman, who he is, he answers, "Jud Kelly." But in the credits at the end of the movie it clearly shows James Lilburn's character as Jud Hobson. What happened? Was there a real Jud Hobson somewhere who threatened to sue, or was James Lilburn just trying out some wacky new improv routine? We may never know.
You call this not cooperating?
Early in the siege part of the film Sheriff Shaw makes a big deal about not giving away any information to Baron. This plays really well until right at the climax of the movie when the president's train nears the town. Baron can hear the train's whistle and turns to the sheriff and asks, " Where is it now?" Instead of saying "Guess," or "Drop dead, " the sheriff casually gives him useful information! "It's at the 66 crossing, right outside town." While screenwriter Richard Sale must have included this information to heighten the audience's level of excitement, there is no way to justify having the sheriff go against everything he believed in in order to do it. Not without a fight, anyway. It would have been far simpler to have Bart Wheeler get the info out and leave the sheriff's character intact.
The amnesiatic gun owner
This one's a classic. Pop Benson is an ex Secret Service man. He spends half the movie lecturing Ellen about right and wrong and fighting evil and whatnot. He keeps a revolver in his top dresser drawer. Do you see where I'm going with this? Three men take over his house and shoot two innocent men in cold blood, threaten his grandson and his daughter-in-law with bodily mayhem and, here it comes, THE SHERIFF HAS TO REMIND POP THAT HE'S GOT A GUN IN THE HOUSE! The actual line is, "Hey Pop, don't you have a gun?" I ask you, have you ever known ANY gun owner who has to be reminded that they own a gun? Most that I've known would love for three bad guys to show up so they'd finally have half an excuse to start sprayin' lead. Again, what was Richard Sale thinking?
Benny's phony booth
	Benny phones Baron from in front of Kaplan's Garage, then leaves the phone booth where he's suddenly downtown right across from the M&N Market being confronted by Slim. Notice the door on the booth? The angle barely changes, but one minute we see Kaplan's Garage in the background; the next minute we don't. Obviously the phone booth was just a prop to make Kaplan's appear to be located downtown. Nice try, guys.
The man with no blood
	When Benny gets shot, he at least has the decency to bleed. But when Baron gets his at the end of the film -- shot twice at close range -- there's no blood at all. I guess Ellen told him "You can try to kill the President of the United States, but don't go staining my brand new carpet, buddy!"
Angels in the outfield
Why is Benny Conklin involved in so many of these things? As I explained in the credits page, when Paul Frees' character gets killed by a cop, his voice comes back to life as the TV baseball announcer. Like we wouldn't notice.
You call that continuity?
	On the left is a publicity still from the memorable scene where Tod has Baron set his fractured arm. These shots were displayed in the lobby when the film was shown in the theater or went out with a press kit. The whole thing is a recreation, as you can tell from the actual scene on the right as it appears in the movie. Notice anything odd? That's right, someone forgot to tell the sun to rise when they took the photo!

Now try and discover your own "Hey, that don't make sense!" moments!