Sinatra plays a psychopath who takes several people as hostages in his attempt to shoot the USA President. The film is short and deft, and it takes itself seriously, that is it spares us of gags and laughs. (I have seen relatively few Sinatra movies—the famous Clift/Lancaster WW 2 drama, and a couple of Tony Rome installments that were for me a kind of cult late _noirs.) As the lead in SUDDENLY, given being his role, Sinatra displayed a marvelous talent.

In SUDDENLY (the name of a small town where the action takes place), Sinatra's role comes not from the cinema line of character acting, but from life and from a genuine inspiration. In many ways, Sinatra was even above his role.

The young Sinatra owed a part of his delicious nonchalance on—screen to his previous experience as a showman—the man was vastly experienced and managed exquisitely his presence.Yet he goes far beyond a vaudeville nonchalance and gives life to a firmly existing psychopath that activates as a hit--man.

This small action drama has a very well made script, concise, economic, clear, dense. Hayden is not a bad actor, either (but, of course, totally eclipsed by the far more striking Sinatra …).

It would seem tempting to call the film far ahead of its time; in fact, as a superior thriller and a succinct action drama—of excellent taste, dynamic sense and sustained drama and elastic, steely style , Lewis Allen's SUDDENLY is far above many corny '50s movies that look clumsy and even dolt. Yet SUDDENLY is, in fact, an exponent of "the other '50s" (just as there are exponents of the other '30s, '40s, '50s), worthy pieces of style and taste.(The movie was badly ,wrongly defined. I have read that "the themes of violence, sense of claustrophobia and despair mark the film as completely amoral"—this is crap and can only come from someone who has not actually seen the movie ….On the outside, SUDDENLY not only is not amoral—but it is somehow moralizing .There's no claustrophobia (not above the amount expectable from a hostages drama …)—not some that would define the movie. And the invoked 'despair' is but a gross, pedestrian approximation for Sinatra's lively ,remarkable part. ) There is an immensely enjoyable gusto in Sinatra's highly sparkling youth roles. I have seen quite a few nice roles of hostages—holders—in various registers—the superbly theatrical one (Rourke in Cimino's DESPERATE HOURS), the comic books one (Savallas, or the different villains in the DIE HARD series—to quote something from the commercial genres). Sinatra's role in SUDDENLY certainly stands out for having this incredible sharpness ,matched with a limpidity that should set an example for all actors doing such villain roles. And notice also how instinctively subtle is Sinatra in resolutely refusing to resort to a 'character acting'. The young Sinatra's powerhouse vigor was taken and transformed into sharpness by being coordinated by an innate (I suppose) artistic understanding. Compared with what this young man could do, most of other movie villains look like what they truly are—character actors. There is a nervous elegance in the way Sinatra (not too) rapidly sketches and defines his part. He is not at all standard in his portrayal because, as he clearly shows it, he does not begin from cinema clichés, but from a true grasp of his role's requirements. This resolute realism makes him honor; he made no larger—than—life, no over—the—top hoodlum, but a psychopath portrayed with sharpness and volubility and this manly clarity that signs Sinatra's early parts.

Sinatra's role is beautifully engineered, yet with sobriety and taste, and he naturally dominates the stage, eclipses all others, crushes mercilessly any other screen presence. On a triple level—in life,on screen and in his advertised, promoted public persona—Sinatra was a predator. This ferocious quality spices his best roles, as well—as a mobile, shrewd, agile, violent hoodlum.

The whole cast of SUDDENLY look like people meaning to make a serious small drama, and not looking cool or posing for their fans or preoccupied to look the coolest ever. The performances are deprived of the small—minded narcissism that defines so many of the _noirs. What matters to the actors in SUDDENLY is the movie, and not their own persona. Welleswise, the actors in KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL were trying, striving to be cool and representative; almost nothing of this sort in SUDDENLY. The film here is also deprived that all that was schmaltzy in the '50s, the schmaltzy approach of the '50s ….

For Sinatra,his role was not about posing or looking cool.

You see?DETOUR meant espousing fatalism and nihilism; KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL meant flirting with the coolness, with the narcissism and coolness of the image; SUDDENLY means playing it straight.