The Desperate Hours (1955)

User Rating:

7.6/10   

Director:

William Wyler

Writers:

Joseph Hayes (novel)
Joseph Hayes (play)

Release Date:

13 February 1956 (Sweden)

Genre:

Film-Noir | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

A reign of violence sweeps the screen

Plot:

Glen, Hal and Sam are three escaped convicts who move in on and terrorize a suburban household.

Plot Keywords:

Prison Escapees | Suburbia | Automobile Accident | Killing | Neighbor

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

Humphrey Bogart	...	Glenn Griffin
Fredric March	...	Dan C. Hilliard
Arthur Kennedy	...	Deputy Sheriff Jesse Bard
Martha Scott	...	Eleanor 'Ellie' Hilliard
Dewey Martin	...	Hal Griffin
Gig Young	...	Chuck Wright
Mary Murphy	...	Cindy Hilliard
Richard Eyer	...	Ralphie Hilliard
Robert Middleton	...	Sam Kobish
Alan Reed	...	Detective
Bert Freed	...	Tom Winston (deputy with Bard)
Ray Collins	...	Sheriff Masters (Bard's absent superior)
Whit Bissell	...	FBI Agent Carson
Ray Teal	...	State Police Lt. Fredericks

Runtime:

112 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Norway:16 (1964) | Norway:(Banned) (1956 - 1964) | West Germany:16 (f) | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Germany:16 (DVD rating) | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Backlot, Universal Studios - 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

The first black and white movie in VistaVision.

Goofs:

Continuity: Before Glenn asks Eleanor if she could make a phone call without crying, he puts his left hand in his pocket. When she stands up and walks to the phone, he puts the same hand in the pocket again.

Quotes:

[first lines]
[the morning newspaper hits the front door]
Eleanor Hilliard: I'll get it, darling.
Dan Hilliard: Some morning I'm gonna catch up with that kid.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "The Colgate Comedy Hour: (#6.3)" (1955)

The film gives us the most ruthless and disgusting gangsters the screen has yet seen…

"The Desperate Hours" is a towering achievement in suspense films… It was cast to perfection, written and directed by a meticulous, serious artist…

Its basic situation – of a family trapped in their home for 36 hours by an utterly ruthless gang – was not new… What was new and immeasurably compelling was the fact that these were not simply "good guys" and "bad guys," but all were real, breathing, vulnerable human beings… They all knew how to hate and to be afraid, and to want to kill and want to love… There were no supermen either… They got hungry, and irritable, and tired, and they showed hesitation and uncertainty as well as pure courage…

It began as an ordinary day for the Hilliard family in their pleasant home in Indianapolis… Eleanor (Martha Scott) gave breakfast to her family and saw them off – husband Dan (Fredric March) to his job in a store, pretty daughter Cindy (Mary Murphy) to her office desk, and ten-year-o1d Ralphie (Richard Eyer) to school…

Turning on the radio, she paid little attention to the news item, about the escape of three desperate criminals from jail: ruthless Glenn Griffin (Humphrey Bogart), his younger brother Hal (Dewey Martin) and the brutish Sam Kobish (Robert Middleton).

These three needed a safe hideout while they awaited the arrival of some expected money and they chose the Hilliard home… They were installed and completely in command when Dan and the two youngsters came home – and there the family was trapped, under the gangsters' order to "make it normal" and with no doubt of the consequences if they did not obey…

As the major tensions mounted – the money did not arrive and the police closed in – there was a fascinating interplay of lesser conflicts:

- The father urgently trying to repress his rage to save his family – until his final gamble...

- The schoolboy unable to believe that the guns and bullets are real – and unable to understand why his adored father is apparently submitting without a fight...

- The wife fighting hysteria in an attempt to live normally in such circumstances...

-The spitfire daughter and her boyfriend (Gig Young), whose impatient courtship almost causes disaster...

- The youngest criminal coming to see in the quiet normality of the lives he has invaded a message of the waste of his own...

- The deputy sheriff (Arthur Kennedy) leading the hunt and knowing he has been marked out for murder...

- The gang leader, played by Humphrey Bogart with an intelligence to match his deadly ruthlessness, with a shrewd instinct for discovering others' weaknesses… and torn when his own younger brother quits, finding himself as much a prisoner in the house as his hostages… Once before, in "The Petrified Forest," Bogart gave us such a man, but that performance was relatively restrained compared to this beast at bay…