Daniel and Ellie Hilliard and their two children, teenage Cindy and nine-year-old Ralph, seem like the perfect all-American family, living the American Dream in an upmarket middle-class suburb of Indianapolis. It is, of course, a standard cinematic cliché that bourgeois comfort goes before a fall, and so it proves here. The Hilliards are subjected to a home invasion by three escaped convicts, brothers Glenn and Hal Griffin and the slow-witted and thuggish Simon Kobish, and are held hostage. They never inform the police, although they have opportunities to do so, because they are terrified of what the convicts might do to the other family members. (With justification- the crooks show how ruthless they can be when they murder the garbage collector, who they suspect has stumbled om the truth). The police, however, eventually discover where the convicts are hiding.
"Directed by William Wyler" and "starring Humphrey Bogart" are normally two good reasons for me to watch any movie. Bogart, appearing in his penultimate film before his tragically early death- his last was to be "The Harder They Fall"- is certainly good. He plays Glenn Griffin, the oldest of the three convicts, and the one who acts as their leader. He is an intelligent man and there is something about Bogart's performance that suggests that under different circumstances he could have made more of his life, but under the circumstances in which he actually finds himself he is trapped by self-pity and a refusal to take responsibility for his actions. He displays a particular animosity towards the blameless Daniel Hilliard whom he sees as a typical representative of the middle classes he despises, but fails to see that the true reason for his predicament is his own criminality rather than his working-class background.
The role of Glenn- originally a much younger man- had been created by Paul Newman in the Broadway stage play on which the film was based, but the producers wanted a big Hollywood star in the role, and in 1955 Newman did not count as such. He had at this date only made one feature film, "The Silver Chalice", and that was a notorious flop.
"The Desperate Hours", however, is not as good as I had hoped it would be. It is reasonably well directed and acted; besides Bogart, Fredric March is also good as the distressed paterfamilias Daniel. The problem lies with the script and the story. There are too many plot-holes or unexplained developments. In fact, it is never really explained why the convicts break into the Hilliards' home in the first place. We are informed that they are waiting for Griffin's girlfriend to send money to them, but we are not informed why they needed to break into a house for this purpose or what they intend to do once they have got the money. Could they not have arranged a rendezvous in some place where they would be at less risk of drawing attention to themselves, and if they needed a building to shelter in, would not an unoccupied one have been safer? And why did the Griffin brothers choose someone as stupid and unpredictably violent as Kobish as their accomplice?
Another plot hole is that the three convicts, on number of occasions, allow one or more of their hostages to leave the building- Daniel so that he can go to work, Cindy so that she can keep a date with her boyfriend, and so on. Admittedly, they always make sure that they have one family member as a hostage, but could they really afford to take the chance that the person allowed to leave might take the opportunity to alert the police?
And so on. The film is supposed to be a thriller, but I watch thrillers to be thrilled, not to be distracted by unnecessary weaknesses in the plot. 6/10, which would have been lower without Bogart's contribution.
"Directed by William Wyler" and "starring Humphrey Bogart" are normally two good reasons for me to watch any movie. Bogart, appearing in his penultimate film before his tragically early death- his last was to be "The Harder They Fall"- is certainly good. He plays Glenn Griffin, the oldest of the three convicts, and the one who acts as their leader. He is an intelligent man and there is something about Bogart's performance that suggests that under different circumstances he could have made more of his life, but under the circumstances in which he actually finds himself he is trapped by self-pity and a refusal to take responsibility for his actions. He displays a particular animosity towards the blameless Daniel Hilliard whom he sees as a typical representative of the middle classes he despises, but fails to see that the true reason for his predicament is his own criminality rather than his working-class background.
The role of Glenn- originally a much younger man- had been created by Paul Newman in the Broadway stage play on which the film was based, but the producers wanted a big Hollywood star in the role, and in 1955 Newman did not count as such. He had at this date only made one feature film, "The Silver Chalice", and that was a notorious flop.
"The Desperate Hours", however, is not as good as I had hoped it would be. It is reasonably well directed and acted; besides Bogart, Fredric March is also good as the distressed paterfamilias Daniel. The problem lies with the script and the story. There are too many plot-holes or unexplained developments. In fact, it is never really explained why the convicts break into the Hilliards' home in the first place. We are informed that they are waiting for Griffin's girlfriend to send money to them, but we are not informed why they needed to break into a house for this purpose or what they intend to do once they have got the money. Could they not have arranged a rendezvous in some place where they would be at less risk of drawing attention to themselves, and if they needed a building to shelter in, would not an unoccupied one have been safer? And why did the Griffin brothers choose someone as stupid and unpredictably violent as Kobish as their accomplice?
Another plot hole is that the three convicts, on number of occasions, allow one or more of their hostages to leave the building- Daniel so that he can go to work, Cindy so that she can keep a date with her boyfriend, and so on. Admittedly, they always make sure that they have one family member as a hostage, but could they really afford to take the chance that the person allowed to leave might take the opportunity to alert the police?
And so on. The film is supposed to be a thriller, but I watch thrillers to be thrilled, not to be distracted by unnecessary weaknesses in the plot. 6/10, which would have been lower without Bogart's contribution.