Thanks for the memories!

hyped garbage

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

RANSOM! Premiered August 27th of 1956, it was both produced and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio. The screenplay was written by Cyril Hume and Richard Maibaum and was based on their teleplay "Fearful Decision" for the ABC network television show The U.S. Steel Hour (1954). I like that original title better, FEARFUL DECISION. Of the director Alex Segal little is known other than he mostly worked in television and aside from tonight's film he is best remembered for making NO TIME FOR SERGEANTS, ALL THE WAY HOME, JOY IN THE MORNING and winning an Emmy for his 1966 version of DEATH OF A SALESMAN. During the 1950's -- Hollywood's originality was on a decline and often filled with remakes of sequels. (not like today!) On the fast growing medium of television more risks were being taking and better stories were then sold to Hollywood to make feature films. Other examples of original TV productions becoming major motion pictures are MARTY, REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT, 12 ANGRY MEN, DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES, etc. Among tonight's character actors to look for are: Juanita Moore the sweet round faced African-American actress who plays Shirley. Juanita Moore would be Oscar nominated three years after this for her amazing performance in the 1959 version of IMITATION OF LIFE.Next look for Alexander Scourby who plays Dr. Paul Gorman. He was famous for his rich British accent that he used in voiceovers and narration, seldom did he mention the fact that he was really from Brooklyn, New York. Most of you will recognize the balding actor playing Chief Jim Brackett but you may not know his name, that's Robert Keith who in real life was the father of Brian Keith of TV's FAMILY AFFAIR fame. Juano Herandez plays Uncle Jesse Chapman that's always quoting the bible. Hernandez was one of the first "new style" black screen actors, who neither sang nor danced but played characters just as white actors did. He's amazing in a little southern drama called INTRUDER IN THE DUST. How many of you are fans of the 1980 comedy AIRPLANE? Well AIRPLANE made a major star out of Leslie Nielsen who has appeared in over 100 movies… RANSOM was his very first movie! Leslie plays Charlie Telfer is still working today at the age of 83! Nielsen was born in remote Saskatchewan, Canada the son of a Canadian Mountie. He studied acting at a school run by future Bonanza TV star Lorne Greene and studied dance under no less than Martha Graham! After RANSOM he appeared in the sci-fi classic FORBIDDEN PLANET, the romantic comedy TAMMY AND THE BACHELOR with Debbie Reynolds, then later the disaster epic POSEIDON ADVENTURE. After returning to television in POLICE SQUAD he found even more success making THE NAKED GUN films and there many spin offs. Wholesome Donna Reed was discovered to no surprise in a beauty pageant and with rare exceptions, she mostly portrayed sincere, wholesome types, loving wives and girlfriends. Her most famous role was playing Jimmy Stewart's sweetheart in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE but when she played a prostitute in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY she won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress of the year! Soon after this film she retired from the big screen and was a great success starring in her own TV series, THE DONNA REED SHOW which ran from 1958 through 1966. But the real star of tonight's film is the under rated Glenn Ford who was so good at drama, comedy and westerns… he made it look easy. Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford was also Canadian and didn't go on stage until the ripe old age of 4 in Tom Thumb's Wedding. After his family moved to California he excelled in theater and was put under contract by Columbia studios who kept him busy in lower budget B films until WWII came along and he joined the Marines. After the war he jump-starting his career in 1946 with the film noir classic GILDA, co-starring Rita Hayworth (they would become life long friends, neighbors and when she passed in 1987 he was one of her pallbearers.) While he insisted that he "never played anyone but himself on screen," Ford's range was quite extensive. He was equally effective as a tormented film noir hero (THE BIG HEAT & HUMAN DESIRE) as he was in light comedy (TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON & THE GAZEBO). Nearly half of his films were Westerns, many of which — THE DESPERADOES, THE FASTEST GUN ALIVE, 3:10 TO YUMA, COWBOY — were among the best and most successful examples of that highly specialized genre. He was also quite effective at conveying courage under pressure: While it was clear that his characters in such films as THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE and RANSOM were terrified by the circumstances surrounding them, it was also obvious that they weren't about to let that terror get the better of them. In 1958, Ford was voted the number one male box-office attraction. He would go on to make more films and appear in several TV series but illness forced him to finally retire in the 1990s and he never got that Oscar for lifetime achievement that many, like myself believe he deserved. He passed away in 2006 but fortunately we still have most of his 106 titles preserved so that we can enjoy spending a little more time with this fine actor. In 1996 director Ron Howard remade this film with stars Mel Gibson and Rene Russo and it's a fine film, but the writers added several subplots, car chases and explosions. I think they just wanted to sell more tickets but this earlier version wanted to a story.

After the young son of the wealthy owner of a vacuum cleaner company is kidnapped, the decision is made not to pay the ransom money. The film focuses on this decision and the tortured thought process behind it. The boy's eerie disappearance is portrayed quite well. You don't see it, but hear about it through two phone conversations that take place in the afternoon between the mother (Donna Reed) and the office of the exclusive private school that the boy attends, and then between the father(Glenn Ford) and the doctor's office where the boy was supposed to have been sent. Day gives way to night, the police chief arrives, then the doctor, later followed by the school's principal (in a stunning role) trying to wiggle out of any responsibility for the boy. Finally comes Leslie Nielson as the reporter for the local daily. Through it all is Juano Hernandez as the long time butler who tries his best to protect the family from a growing media frenzy. Glenn Ford's sturdy persona fits right into the part, mix of a father's emotional trauma and a business man's calculations of the odds. The speech he conveys to the public and the kidnappers via television is beautiful. As the situation unfolds important people try to influence Ford's decisions and, like the school principal, find ways out of any blame that could conceivably come there way. Rarely will one see a chief of police portrayed as such a wimp as this one is, much like the some of the cops in another really good Glenn Ford film, The Big Heat. Like other posters for this film have noted, this is an ingenious film getting excitement without the usual action. We see a man in a dark room in an armchair puffing away on a cigarette, the kidnapper, as he watches Ford's televised speech. It's quite exciting and yet is all lighting and mood. Where the boy is, no one knows, which is another part of the strategy behind this film that does a lot to make it at least more than a little disturbing. The film's major flaw, the 50's stereotyping of the characters, the house, the lifestyle, and just about everything else, doesn't doom it to the waste bin. Donna Reed is quite good in the film, much better than her part is.

Close-knit family is torn apart after young boy is kidnapped. Glenn Ford does his usual first-class work as the boy's distraught father, though the supporting performances fail to match up or make any impact of their own. Director Alex Segal shows no imagination behind the camera, and his film is workman-like in the manner of TV dramas. Donna Reed's hysterical mom becomes tiresome before too long, and there isn't much detail on the kidnappers themselves (whom we never see). By giving us some inkling of their plans or intrinsic motives, the movie might have felt more fully played out. Still, Ford is almost always worth watching, and his thoughtful work should certainly please his fans. Remade in 1996 with Mel Gibson. ** from ****

There certainly seem to be very mixed perceptions of this film posted here by the various reviewers. It is perhaps the film's greatest strength that it does manage to entertain despite some serious flaws. Indeed, my family and I enjoy this film very much, perhaps because there is so much wrong with it that generates discussion.For starters, I'll address "realism". The depiction of the Stannard family is no more realistic than the Cleavers, the Nelsons, or any other exceedingly unbelievably perfect white upper-middle-class family that would be depicted on 1950's television; that is to say, there is no such animal as this, then or now. At the beginning of the story, the Stannard's grade-school age boy has been going about the house destroying the furniture to salvage wood for his backyard clubhouse, and for this he receives nothing more than a lighthearted and very amused reprimand from his father. This is realism? Had the story continued on dealing only with the perfect family life of the perfect Stannards, it would have been intolerable.But, as you know, their boy is kidnapped. Unlike Ron Howard's rather inferior remake, this original screenplay never attempts to tell us who kidnapped the child or what their motivation might have been. Rather than a plot hole, this serves to increase the anxiety we share with the family, as these are questions they have no answers to either. And it's really rather irrelevant. The Stannard's live quite well, even by unrealistic 1950's white TV family standards, the potential money alone is all the motivation required for a kidnapping.It is at this point in the film that we crash headlong into its biggest flaw. The treatment of Donna Reed's character, Mrs. Stannard, is deplorable, even in a time period when women were routinely portrayed as little more than drooling idiots. Seemingly greater than the concern for the kidnapped child is the concern that his mother might suffer an unchecked display of emotion. Indeed, the doctor has been summoned with his narcotics and she is promptly doped up even before the police have arrived! The only excuse offered for this disturbingly abusive misogynistic behavior is that "she carried that child in her body" and the father did not. Good Lord! As Mrs. Stannard remains in a drugged stupor for the remainder of the film, from this point on her character becomes little more than an annoying distraction. This portrayal of women as childish morons who cannot handle their own emotions is both shockingly sexist and insulting. Why is it that almost no one would pass up an opportunity to denigrate the portrayal of African Americans or Hispanics in old films, yet this treatment of women rarely rates a mention? I certainly hope this is not realism, as I should hope the family's seeming inability to bar unwanted tabloid vultures from the privacy of their own home is not considered "realism" either. The police were on hand, they could have handily ejected such unwelcome nuisances at any time with a mere request from the one remaining coherent parent.Once we get past some of this freakishly surrealistic activity, the meat of the story does tackle some intriguing questions, and does make some attempt to deal with the family's anguish as well as the father's bold decision not to cave into the fear inflicted upon them by the kidnappers. Ultimately, it is these thought provoking larger issues that give the film it's value, as the Stannard's particular kidnapping seems to be suddenly resolved with no explanation whatsoever.This is an entertaining film, relatively safe family viewing (if you don't mind explaining to your kids why they shot mommy full of dope at the drop of a hat), and should certainly generate some lively discussion.