Terrible script, unbelievable acting by Sinatra and wooden, forced tough-guy acting by a limited-range actor Sterling Hayden. Propaganda filled slant on everything covered, which is repeated over and over again, making this a camp film along the lines of Reefer Madness. Any serious assassination plotters would not allow their protagonists to stay in the same room, uncuffed and unfettered, where they almost certainly would do everything they could to stop the crime. It makes no sense. How can the criminals search the house and miss a gun in the top drawer of the bureau? Why would they not either kill or disable all the others and confine them to the basement? Nothing here makes sense and the plot calls on you to turn something as horrific as an assassination into a fairy tale in order for it to be believed. This film is a failure on all fronts and an embarrassment to the movie industry. The story is that Sinatra wanted it recalled after the Kennedy assassination. The real scuttlebutt is that Sinatra used the assassination as his excuse to eliminate the film from circulation, knowing it was his black mark in the entertainment industry, and he was ashamed of doing it.
Review of Suddenly
