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Bogie had done films like this one before: The Petrified Forest (1936), High Sierra (1941), Key Largo (1948) and We're No Angels (1955) – all with Bogie as a gangster or victim of a gangster, in a desperate setting (although the last one is a comedic spoof). Desperate Hours, however, is different – this time out, Bogie (as Glen Griffin) has a whole suburban family as hostage as he tries to complete his run for freedom from the law. Is this the first such home invasion type movie? Perhaps Suddenly (1954)?

The story is simply superb. Every good narrative succeeds because of certain literary aspects: a believable story line, down-to-earth dialog that supports it, a good measure of irony at appropriate turning points, just the right amount of coincidence that can intrude on anybody's daily experience, a dogged police officer who just won't give up in the search for what he believes, and a family – an ordinary family – that finds within itself the courage, imagination, and strength to persevere in the face of the real threat of death.

I saw this film long ago when just a lad, so I didn't recall much of the story at all. But, being a Bogie fan, I looked forward to seeing it again when I got a hold of a DVD recently. I don't recall what movies were in the running for the Oscars that year, but I think this should have been a contender (apparently, it wasn't).

The cast was well chosen. Bogie, of course, was "made" for this part, having done so many like it in the past – and that's not a side-swipe at typecasting; Robert Middleton almost steals the movie with his portrayal of the psychopathic Kobish -- a chilling portrayal; Dewey Martin as Bogie's brother, Hal, provides a sense of decency that the other two lack, the only jarring note for me: why should he? He's on the run, and drops all pretense of humanity when he decides to cut and run by himself. And, we know what happens to anybody who cuts and runs, right? Frederic March as Dan Hilliard ably shows what can happen to your principles and behavior when lives are at stake: most of life's niceties go out the window as he tries to save his family. Understandable, given the desperate situation. Martha Scott as his wife and Mary Murphy as his daughter (Cindy) are suitably frightened most of the time, but they also summon the courage to oppose the bad guys when possible. The guy who isn't used so much is Arthur Kennedy as deputy sheriff Bard, but his role is pivotal in bringing the story to a satisfactory ending. Pity, because Kennedy was as fine an actor as Bogie or March. Gig Young, as Cindy's suitor, rounds out the main cast – he playing the puzzled hopeful who just won't go away when Cindy pleads with him to "stay away". It's just as well that he didn't...

The setting in small town America is just right, the picture perfect home of the Hilliards standing for the American dream that is about to threatened and even destroyed. Which gives rise to one of the best lines in cinema history, spoken by March near the end: "Get out – get out of my house!" he nearly screams at Bogie, thus cementing forever in film the idea of a man's home as his castle. Bogie visibly wilts before the stern and righteous wrath of March – but not only because of that does Bogie give it all up. You'll have to see the film to understand why.

Most of the action is within the confines of the Hilliard house (having been a stage play first, that makes sense) and the cinematography takes full advantage of all those nooks and crannies to enthrall the viewer and keep the suspense running. I liked particularly the reasonably long take of the camera behind the bad guys while they watch the old trash collector do his work and who seems to miss the presence of their stolen car in the garage. It's a priceless piece of work as the escapees faces keep looking at each other and then at the old man – and the viewer stays on edge, all the time, wondering: will he react?

The final showdown is simply a tour de force. It's fast and furious, ranging all through the ground floor, up the stairs and into the bedrooms, and then back again, as the protagonists fight it out for supremacy; I was reminded of Dustin Hoffman's running fight with the bad guys in Straw Dogs (1971). In the hands of an inept director, it would have been farcical but Wyler turns on the suspense and the irony as March overcomes his adversary – Bogie – in one of the coolest ways imaginable. No, I won't tell you, because that would spoil it for you.

As the credits rolled by at the end, my immediate thought was that this type of story is so believable, it could happen to me, or you...

The adaptation to the screen of Joseph Hayes' play by Mr. Hayes, himself, is given an excellent treatment by William Wyler, one of the great film directors of all times. The play was claustrophobic; there is little to be done in opening it and at times it feels as though we are in the theater watching the drama unfolds. Instead of detracting from it, this atmosphere contributes to the drama we are watching.

This film juxtaposes good and evil. We have the Hilliard household, which could be the set from anyone of the sitcoms of late 50s TV. There is the father figure, the decent Dan who is happily married to Eleonor and they have two children that seem to be their pride and joy.

Into this house a trio of escaped convicts arrive; they are ruthless. Led by Glenn Griffin, these desperate men bring panic to the Hilliards, who become paralyzed by the harm they might encounter at the hands of the criminals.

This film is a tribute to the great acting of Humphrey Bogart and Frederick March. Their characters are well defined and both actors play extremely well together. Mr. March was an accomplished actor of both the theater and the screen. Mr. Bogart holds his own against his co-star in a show of wills, unrivaled in any of the films of the 50s.

The cast assembled was first rate. Under Wyler's direction they give detailed performances. Martha Scott, Arthur Kennedy, Gig Young, Dewey Martin, among others, shine in this movie.

Dan Hilliard and his family are perfect Americans, corresponding admirably to the bourgeois ideal. The two children are bright, good-looking and obedient. Cindy is about 20 and is going steady with an attorney who owns a sports car. Ralphy is eight or so, all plaid shirts, jeans and attitude. He has a baseball mitt and a bicycle. Ellie, Dan's wife, runs their spotless home with quiet efficiency. Everything is in its place. Trash collectors call at fixed times. Breakfast is a serene family ritual. The Hilliards' home life is as balanced, as regular and as dull as the barometer on the wall. As for Dan Hillier himself, he has attained that mythic status to which all 1950's bourgeois males aspired - he is an executive. The middle classes don't want adventure in their lives, they want predictability. And this is the perfect, dream-like state in which the Hilliards pass their anodyne existence, secure in their suburban womb - until the American Nightmare is unleashed upon them.

What if members of The Underclass, with their dirty, unshaven physicality and their sagging, torn clothes should irrupt into the suburbs? What if, by some catastrophic failure, the police and the prison service can't keep The Underclass in its designated containers? How will nice folks like the Hilliards cope if confronted by these alien beings?

There has been a jailbreak. The citizens of Indianapolis have been warned to watch out for three desperadoes - the two Griffin brothers and their accomplice Kobish. Little do the Hilliards realise as they go about their tranquil suburban lives, but the fugitives are about to choose the Hilliard home as a place to hole up ...

Like "Suddenly", made a year earlier, this is a 'bad guys invaded my home' movie. The downside of bourgeois affluence is the fear that the disenfranchised masses will come to take away your goodies.

Humphrey Bogart was in his late 50's and clearly ailing when he played the part of Glenn Griffin, the leader of the fugitive trio. He would make only two more films in the short time that was left to him. Dewey Martin, 26 years his junior, plays his kid brother Hal.

More than anything, "The Desperate Hours" is a film about social class. "You can't play ball with savages like that," opines a Madison County detective. Glenn holds his social superiors in equal contempt, calling them "smart-eyed respectable suckers". He warns Hal not to expect any favours from the class enemy: "Guys like Hilliard ever give you a fair shake?" Much play is made of linguistic markers which separate the educated from the rest ('whom' instead of 'who'), and contrasts in table manners between the refined Hilliards and their thuggish captors. Glenn lashes out against the tea tray, that emblem of middle-class gentility, and the virginal Cindy, whom he urges Hal to 'take'.

Dire though the Hilliards' predicament may be, they are not alone. They are exactly the kind of people the forces of law and order exist to protect and serve, and it is not long before Madison County's finest and the FBI are closing in on the fugitives. And the cops have science on their side. They can tap the phone of Glenn's girlfriend in Pittsburgh, and tail her across America as she heads for the rendezvous. In the police station, the humming wires never rest as technology narrows down the bad guys' options.

Middle-class sensibility is all-pervasive. Chuck and Cindy argue near the sports car, but break off abruptly when two people pass by. No matter how deeply the emotions may run, it isn't seemly to fight in front of the neighbours. Dan's secretary can tell, from nuances of his behaviour, that something is very wrong. Similarly, the trashman senses that things are amiss with Ellie by the quality of her chat. We see Cindy admiring her curves in front of the hallway mirror, because it is important that she be sexually desirable (so that the fugitives will regard her as a chattle). Chuck, however, has to remain sexually thwarted, because his behaviour is bound by rigid bourgeois restrictions. We see him raise the arm-rest in his sports car in the hope of a grappling session with Cindy, then lowering it dejectedly when he realises that his luck is out. Dan's wave to Chuck to cross the threshold is a symbolic acceptance of him as a son-in-law. He has made it into The Family.

Light represents goodness. Cindy comes home after another chaste date with Chuck and is bathed in bright light on the doorstep. Dan and Ellie declare their love for each other, their bodies lit intensely in an otherwise black bedroom. The searchlights of the police, and the bad guys' vain attempts to eradicate them, show us figuratively what we yearn to see - that good will always triumph over social disruption.

The overpowering of Ellie, the smashing of Ralphy's toy plane and the collapse of Cindy all happen on the same spot and are all filmed from the same low angle. These dramatic incidents show the Hilliards at bay, and the unusual vantage-point stresses the 'wrongness' of what is happening.

Implausibilities abound throughout the movie. How likely is it that the front door would be left unlocked, that Chuck would reach the house ahead of the cops, or that Dan would insist on carrying a gun, then empty its clip? Why would he hesitate to call the police in, once he got the upper hand? Why would everyone leave the family unattended, moments after the conclusion of a violent and dramatic siege?

And yet it works. Glenn's love of his brother breaks through his tough-guy facade, and after he gives his guns away he undergoes a tragic 'King Lear' moment of self-realisation. These are powerful moments in a powerful film.

It deals with three escaped convicts , on the run from the law, move into a married couple's house and takes over their lives. As a Psychotic criminal, Glen Griffin's about to go on trial escapes from his pursuers . As a trio (Humphrey Bogart , Dewey Martin , Robert Middleton) try to make their getaway . They hide out at the house of a good family, the Hilliard formed by the uprighter father (Fredric March) , mother (Martha Scott) , the teen daughter (Mary Murphy) and a little boy (Richard Eyer). Now it appears the Hilliards have problems of their own. A reign of violence sweeps the screen.The First Picture in Black and White VistaVision. At the height of fear every moment is a desperate hour.Glen Griffin is looking for a place to call home... Just for a few hours.Who is stronger? A psychopath who feeds on terror? Or a father driven by fear? Only time will tell.Desire is the deadliest weapon of all.

A nice thriller based on a ful play and the result is a taut , suspenseful , twisted movie , made with a wonderful cast and all the expertise and power at Wiliiam Wyler's command . Joseph Hayes, the source novelist and playwright of the 1954 novel and 1955 play, also wrote the screenplay for Horas desesperadas (1955), and also co-wrote the script for this version.The source stage play was a box-office smash hit on Broadway, and won Tony Awards for Best Play and Best Direction for Robert Montgomery. The original Broadway production of "The Desperate Hours", written by Joseph Hayes opened on February 10, 1955, at the Ethel Barrymore Theater, where it ran for two hundred twelve performances until August 13, 1955. The play had previously opened in New Haven's Shubert Theatre in 1955, before re-launching on Broadway in August 1955. This classic The desperate hours (1955) had an inferior remake being released thirty-five years later in 1990 directed by Michael Cimino with Michael Rourke , Anthony Hopkins , Mimi Rogers , Kelly Lynch , Shawnee Smith . This movie was the third English language version of the story, being released twenty-three years after the television movie version , though the latter was critically poorly received and was a commercial failure at the box-office; however the vintage Bogart rendition received awesome critics.

The motion picture was compellingly directed by the maestro William Wyler . Wyler was considered by his peers as second only to John Ford as a master craftsman of cinema and the winner of three Best Director Academy Awards . Wyler was a great professional who had a career full of successes in all kind of genres as Film Noir : ¨Detective story¨ , ¨The desperate hours¨ , ¨Dead End¨ ; Western : ¨The Westener¨, ¨Friendly persuasion¨ , ¨Big Country¨ , but his speciality were dramas as : ¨Jezebel¨ , ¨The letter¨ , ¨Wuthering Heights¨ , ¨The best years of our lives¨, ¨Mrs Miniver¨, ¨The heiress¨ , ¨the little Foxes¨ , ¨The collector¨ and Comedy as two films starred by Audrey Hepburn : ¨How to steal a million¨ and of course ¨Roman's holiday¨ with Audrey at her Oscar-winning best and immortal comedy-romance. This ¨Desperate hours has a rating 7.5/10, better than average , well worth watching .

Humphrey Bogart got his first real notice on the silver screen in The Petrified Forest, repeating a role he did on Broadway. As Duke Mantee, criminal on the run, he held the occupants of a diner hostage for several hours.

Here in The Desperate Hours, Bogey takes over a role that Paul Newman originated on Broadway. Bogart, Dewey Martin and Robert Middleton play three escaped convicts who drive to Indianapolis because Bogart wants to kill the officer that arrested him. Dewey Martin is Bogart's younger brother and Robert Middleton is their brutal partner in the escape.

Given the age difference between Bogart and Paul Newman, I'm sure the role of Glenn Griffin was played quite differently by Newman on stage. Similarly Karl Malden played Dan Hilliard on stage and Fredric March plays him for the screen. March is no hero here, he's just an ordinary family man trapped with his family in a terrible situation.

Rounding out the Hilliard family is wife Martha Scott, daughter Mary Murphy and son Richard Eyer. Martha Scott had appeared with March before as his wife in One Foot in Heaven. She does well here also, but I do wonder where the real Mrs. March was, Florence Eldridge. It seems like a good joint project for both of them.

The Desperate Hours is a good suspenseful thriller that will keep you glued to your seat. These are real people here, not some Hollywood type situation comedy family. You will care about what the eventual outcome will be.