Suddenly is a 1954 black and white American noir[5] crime film directed by Lewis Allen with a screenplay written by Richard Sale.

However, it soon becomes clear that the men are not government agents but assassins, led by the ruthless John Baron, who take over the house and hold the family hostage.

All are threatened that Pidge will be shot if they do not keep quiet and Baron boasts about the Silver Star he won in the war for killing a large number of the enemy.

Although the hope is that Baron will be shocked and killed in this way, it is his henchman who touches the table first and is electrocuted, reflexively firing the rifle repeatedly and attracting the attention of the agents below.

Baron shoots and mortally wounds Jud, disconnects the electrical hook-up and aims the rifle as the president's train arrives, only to see it pass straight through.

Writer Richard Sale got his idea for the short story that was the basis of the film from articles in the newspaper about President Dwight D. Eisenhower's visits to Palm Springs, California, by train.

Saugus station closed permanently in 1978, but local residents saved the historic building (opened in 1888) and had it moved to a new location, where it now serves as a museum.

He wrote "[Sinatra] inserts plenty of menace into a psycho character, never too heavily done, and gets good backing from his costar, Sterling Hayden, as sheriff, in a less showy role but just as authoritatively handled.

"[9] The reviewer for Newsweek wrote about Sinatra's performance that he "superbly refutes the idea that the straight-role potentialities which earned an Academy Award for him in From Here to Eternity were one-shot stuff.

[10] Moreover, he continued: The sense of claustrophobia and despair unleashed by the assassins in Suddenly is completely amoral, and totally opposite of the style of harassment found in such non-noir, socially redemptive films as The Desperate Hours [1955]...There are no reasons given, or asked for, regarding the assassination — the entire incident functions as a nightmare, a very real nightmare that invades the serenity of a small town.

As with Suddenly, Condon's book features a mentally troubled former war hero who, at the climax of the story, uses a rifle with a scope to shoot at a politician, in the case of the novel, a presidential candidate.

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.

[13] Sinatra also supposedly wanted The Manchurian Candidate – of which he was a producer – withdrawn after the assassination, but its disappearance was caused by its having completed a normal film release schedule.