- Directed by William Wyler and based on a novel and play by Joseph Hayes, The Desperate Hours serves up a surprisingly compelling version of a pretty standard plot in which a family is held hostage in their home. The family consists of married couple Dan and Ellie Hilliard (Fredric March and Martha Scott), their daughter Cindy (Mary Murphy), and young son Ralph (Richard Eyer). Holding the guns are recently escaped convicts Glenn Griffin (Humphrey Bogart), his brother Hal (Dewey Martin), and an accomplice named Kobish (Robert Middleton). Cindy's boyfriend (Gig Young) and a stable of law enforcement agents (Arthur Kennedy, Alan Reed, Bert Freed, Ray Collins, Whit Bissell, Ray Teal) try to be involved, but really this is a story about how a family copes with being held captive.
- Two impressive performances elevate The Desperate Hours far above what I would have expected. The first is from Bogart, who injects a remarkable amount of depth into a character who even Bogart admitted was more or less "Duke Mantee grown up." Sure, he's an unrepentant thug who regularly points a gun at a child, but he also cares deeply about his brother's welfare. The other more surprising great performance is from Middleton, who renders Kobish as an unforgettably uncouth brute. I recognized the actor from Alfred Hitchcock Presents, but I never would have guessed him capable of commanding the screen by wiping his mouth on a tablecloth, getting stuck in a kitchen chair, or grabbing a steering wheel (to run over a dog, naturally). Between this, the cramped station in Detective Story, and that closet in How to Steal a Million, Wyler provides Sydney Lumet with some competition as the master of strangely confined cinematic spaces.
- Apparently this was partly based on a real story of a family that was held hostage. The family sued Life magazine and Richard Nixon was involved in the appeal.
