Frank Sinatra became such a legend in his own lifetime as a singer, a symbol, an actor, and a subject of controversy that there is little to really find that is unusual to talk about concerning him. What to add to the singing idol and Oscar winner. Whatever one thought of Sinatra he was larger than life to most of us - and I sometimes think that the 20th Century ended in 1998 when he died.<br /><br />Sinatra's film career is odd. Initially it was his singing that got him roles. But the characters he played in ANCHORS AWEIGH, ON THE TOWN, and some other early films were very naive types. It is not until FROM HERE TO ETERNITY that people were able to see him in serious film parts. But he still played people that one liked or sympathized with. <br /><br />Sinatra could skirt the law or morality, but he is not the villain usually. In ROBIN AND THE SEVEN HOODS and OCEAN'S ELEVEN, there are worse or more threatening mobsters than Robbo or Danny Ocean. Think of Peter Falk in the former, or the gentlemen represented by George Raft in the latter. The most sleazy character he played was PAL JOEY, who uses women to reach his dream of a great nightclub. But he is not the sleaze ball that John O'Hara wrote of or that Gene Kelly played in the Rodgers and Hart musical. The role was watered down.<br /><br />The fact is Sinatra had an image problem. Sinatra simply refused to be a villain (except once - more in a second). At least, however, Sinatra could still do dramatic roles while being a hero (like Detective Tony Rome, or "Von" Ryan), but he stymied a section of his acting development. His fans never cared, but it meant that he never could reveal a darker image in his acting, unless his characters were twisted by circumstances they barely understood (like in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE).<br /><br />SUDDENLY is the one exception. Here Sinatra played a psychotic villain - a would-be Presidential assassin hold up in a house with his gang, setting up a state of the art rifle with a telescopic site to kill the President as he steps off a train in the small town of Suddenly.<br /><br />It was pointed out on this thread, in another review, that the film seems like a "B" feature, even though Sterling Hayden plays the sheriff, and James Gleason plays a retired Secret Service Agent. Actually the subject matter was quite unusual. Films about political assassination in the U.S were rarities. In the 1940s and 1950s one can think of WE WERE STRANGERS, THE TALL TARGET, PRINCE OF PLAYERS, ALL THE KING'S MEN, A LION IS IN THE STREETS, and THE PHENIX CITY STORY. All these actually dealt with real assassinations (WE WERE STRANGERS dealing with events in 1933 Cuba, but the others dealing with Lincoln, Huey Long, and the murder of the Attorney - General (of Alabama) by corrupt politicians in 1954). But SUDDENLY broke the model a little: SUDDENLY suggested that the Presidency was fair game in mid-20th Century America.<br /><br />This was a shocking concept. McKinley had been the last President to be killed by an assassin, and that was in 1901. Although Teddy Roosevelt was wounded in 1912 while campaigning, and FDR shot at (and Mayor Cermak of Chicago killed) in 1933 those events were long past. FDR's near thing was (supposedly) connected to the Depression. But in 1950 Harry Truman was targeted by two Puerto Rican nationalists at Blair House in Washington (one of the assassins and one of the Secret Service guards had been killed). Still despite the fatalities in 1933 and 1950, the image of a President dying by an assassin seemed unreal in 1954.<br /><br />So the film became quite unsettling to the audience of it's day. Sinatra has the mind set of John Baron (the assassin) quite down pat. A total egomaniac, his attempts at being friendly are only to brag about his being a successful shot in the army. He tells Pidge Benson (Kim Charney - Gleason's grandson, and one of Baron's hostages) that he won a medal for his marksmanship from the army. Pidge dismisses it by saying he (Baron) must have stolen it. He thinks he is better than Booth and the other assassins, because he has his escape planned - although Gleason warns him he'll never get away with it. He also dismisses the men who hired him because immediately as the President dies he'll be replaced by the Vice President. It never bothers him that the men who hired him may want that Vice President as President.<br /><br />He does try to overawe Ellen Benson (Nancy Gates) in the kitchen. But he knows Ellen and the Sheriff are a couple, so it's a way at striking at Hayden too. But his attempts at seduction are not effective (Ellen finds him repulsive). It is possibly the oddest sexual failure in any of Sinatra's movies.<br /><br />In the end the Bensons and their allies thwart Baron, and he dies not understanding why the scheme failed. The film therefore ends reassuring the viewers that "it can't happen here anymore." Within nine years, after he made his best film THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (also dealing with political assassination), Sinatra saw his former friend President John Kennedy murdered. It may have struck him as odd that the murder weapon was a rifle with a telescopic site aimed from a height (the window of a warehouse, rather than a private home), and that the killer was a wiry, thin, long faced loner with a military record. It may explain the fact that Sinatra made sure to take both THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE and SUDDENLY out of circulation for decades - he may have felt profoundly guilty about what happened.