Tras el secuestro del hijo de unos padres adinerados, la policía y un miembro de la prensa intervienen para ayudar a los padres en su búsqueda, pero acaban complicando sus inminentes decisio... Leer todoTras el secuestro del hijo de unos padres adinerados, la policía y un miembro de la prensa intervienen para ayudar a los padres en su búsqueda, pero acaban complicando sus inminentes decisiones.Tras el secuestro del hijo de unos padres adinerados, la policía y un miembro de la prensa intervienen para ayudar a los padres en su búsqueda, pero acaban complicando sus inminentes decisiones.
- Dirección
- Guionistas
- Elenco
- Fred Benson
- (as Robert Forrest)
- George Portalis
- (sin créditos)
- Townsman in Crowd
- (sin créditos)
- Dirección
- Guionistas
- Todo el elenco y el equipo
- Producción, taquilla y más en IMDbPro
Opiniones destacadas
For son Andy doesn't return home as expected from school one day. By the time the day is over, David has mobilized all the men who count: the police chief, the family doctor (to watch over the potentially hysterical Edith), his brother and business associates (to assemble the ransom), the technicians who operate the switches at the phone company (to trace the kidnapper's call when it comes). The kidnapper, belatedly by phone, has demanded $500,000. And Edith, helpless woman, has already cracked under the strain and been put to bed, sedated.
Now David alone must decide what to do. The host of a TV program which David's company sponsors is standing by to go on the air in a white dinner jacket, a pre-arranged signal to the kidnapper that the ransom is ready. But here's a twist--the police chief and even an insouciant reporter who has invaded the Stannard residence (a young Leslie Nielsen) inform David that paying a kidnapper in no way improves the odds for getting the victim back unharmed!
It just shows potential future kidnappers that crime in fact pays. Criminologically, like begets like. David can strike a blow for fathers everywhere by standing up to the son-stealers of this world and refusing to pay. After a bedside visit to Edith in which he tells her nothing, and after much solitary agony, he appears on the TV show himself with the ransom money spread before him. He says to the kidnapper: Nothing doing. You get not one penny. If you don't free my son, all this will bankroll my unceasing efforts to hunt you down. Will your accomplices be able to resist its lure as bribe or reward for turning you in?
Now the wait is on. Which way will the kidnapper jump? Will Andy come home to his father or go home to his Maker? Meanwhile, just about everyone around David turns against him. The public. David's brother, with his yes-men. The sheriff. Most of the media. And especially Edith, who wakes up and twigs to what David has chosen to do. Even the police chief, who as much as egged him on, begins to play cover-his-arse. David's only stalwarts turn out to be his Negro (this is the 50's) butler, played by Juano Hernandez, and Charlie Telfer, the reporter, who has found his mettle. And, beyond Chapman's prayerful faith which likens this situation to that of the Biblical David and Absalom, they can't help.
David Stannard, a master of men, a veritable king, is completely isolated. He is making the gamble of a lifetime. If it pays off, patriarchy will be restored, in the form of a living male heir and possibly a reunited family. If it doesn't ... what?
For the first half hour the movie seems to be making inane statements about bringing up children. But those early conversations become meaningful after the movie is over as the choices the father makes have much to do with the parallels in teaching the son early lessons in life--"stealing" planks from your parents' bed to make a toyhouse is to be viewed in comparison to "stealing" stockholder wealth to regain personal property.
At another level, the story is a mirror of Job's dilemma--standing steadfast on principles when all his earthly possessions (including his wife) are being taken away. It is to the credit of the script and the director that the tormentors (the kidnapers) remain unseen and the battle is merely relegated to one man's internal moral turmoil.
Was Glenn Ford's performance creditable? Yes and no. At the end of the film you tend to think it was a memorable performance. But think of replacing Ford with any good star of the day and the effect could have been much the same, thanks to the script.
I feel this was a good film because it did not lapse into trivial confrontation with the kidnapers as most contemporary movies do. It was good because the film avoided pitfalls, while adding color to fringe characters by providing them with short punchy lines such as the lines of the school headmistress, the journalists, the ice-cream vendor, the pedestrian who wonders how speeding police cars don't get tickets, and last but not least the Afro-american butler.
Now to the film. The point of the story is that it is 50-50 whether you get the victim back or not. Glenn Ford as the father who makes his decision to not pay but offer the whole ransom as a bounty on the kidnappers head, was very pertinent in 1956. There had been other cases like this, but the K.C. case was so brutal that it made headlines all over America for months.
As a woman who is old enough to have read about the case, and seen it on the new medium of TV for months, while it was going on, this film is heartbreaking and to me, almost perfect.
The mother and father and their anguish, the servants, who love the family, and the police and other people who interact with the family, and the company people, all are first rate. It is a slice of life as lived in an affluent mid-American family crisis, and all the principle actors are fine. The criticism I have read here does not stand up because the film is a thoughtful and serious look at a dilemma and not a flashy showcase for action fans. 9/10
The film was based on a true crime committed in the 1950's. Ford's son is kidnapped by someone posing as a nurse, removing his child from school. A wealthy man, Ford questions the efficacy of paying a ransom- why pay? he asks.
Donna Reed as his wife is acceptable but at the start of the film a bit too perky and perfect. There is a nice sub-plot with Juano Hernanadez, the family butler, who looks after Ford and prays for him; trying to help him survive the horrific events.
I had seen the new version with Rene Russo and Mel Gibson. It is a pale version; the new version is all glitz and no substance. Ford draws the audience into his despair, and we truly care about the outcome of these characters. There is no mindless action, violence as there is in the Gibson movie.
Highly recommended. 8/10.
¿Sabías que…?
- TriviaFilm debuts of Leslie Nielsen and Lori March.
- Errores(at around 12 mins) Mrs. Stannard waits for her husband to return from work and son from school by playing the piano near the front window. She hears a vehicle in the drive and lifts her left wrist to look at her watch; however, the music from the piano continues with the part for both hands.
- Citas
[last lines]
Jesse Chapman: [when the Stannards' son is discovered to be alive] "This my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost, and is found!"
[the quote from St. Luke, Chapter 15, Verse 24]
- Versiones alternativasThere is an alternate colorized version.
- ConexionesFeatured in MGM Parade: Episode #1.18 (1956)
Selecciones populares
- How long is Ransom!?Con tecnología de Alexa
Detalles
- Fecha de lanzamiento
- País de origen
- Idioma
- También se conoce como
- Rescate
- Locaciones de filmación
- Westwood, Los Ángeles, California, Estados Unidos(2 motocycle cops shown after Dave calls the police chief - note Westwood Village and Bullock's Dept. store in the background)
- Productora
- Ver más créditos de la compañía en IMDbPro
Taquilla
- Presupuesto
- USD 1,003,000 (estimado)
- Tiempo de ejecución1 hora 49 minutos
- Color
- Relación de aspecto
- 1.37 : 1