Suddenly (1954)

Rather unexceptional drama about a fake FBI agent (played by Frank Sinatra) who attempts to kill the US President. He and his henchmen take over the Benson family’s house in the town of Suddenly, California, in order to aim their gun at the railway station where the President is shortly due to arrive. 

Although there’s some excitement in the ticking-clock countdown to the planned assassination at 5pm, the performances are mainly wooden and/or half-baked. Sinatra has a definite magnetism and out-performs everyone else, but there’s a B-movie feel that it cannot rise above. 

It’s mostly interesting for its attitudes. Ellen (Nancy Gates) wants to prevent her son playing with a toy gun, but her boyfriend, the sheriff (Sterling Hayden) tells her “Stop being a woman!” Shocking stuff. The “moral” seems to be that guns are great – unless a psychopath happens to get hold of one – and that masculinity is incomplete without them. 

The most remarkable aspect of the film is explained by Wikipedia: “Sinatra asked United Artists to withdraw Suddenly from circulation because he heard the rumor that Lee Harvey Oswald had seen it before shooting President Kennedy. According to Hollywood legend, Sinatra bought up all remaining copies of Suddenly and had them destroyed, but this was not true.”