La rançon

While I enjoyed the Mel Gibson remake of this picture and was pleased to see him in a serious role where he could display his acting chops, I thought the whole idea was a little divorced from reality, although it made perfect sense at that time as it must have seemed forty years earlier. The notion of a kidnapping victim's family refusing to pay any ransom and using it instead as a tool to convince the perpetrators to turn the boy loose sounds logical enough, but in real life such an act would bring such universal condemnation upon the father in a real-life scenario that no one has ever considered doing it for real. Part of the reason is that so few children are snatched for money, but usually for other more nefarious reasons by mentally warped individuals who generally work alone and don't confide their plans to friends and associates, making such threats to kidnappers at best useless or at worst counterproductive. Because the villain was evident in the Ron Howard remake, the story had to take a turn whereby the father would have to confront the kidnapper one on one. In this original, the snatchers are virtually unseen, so all the drama rests with the victimized family and how they interact with those who come to their aid or to view the spectacle. As such, it gives the principals, Ford and Reed, the chance to emote and they perform very well. Donna Reed was an unusually gifted actress as her Oscar win and Emmy nominations attest and Glenn Ford was an underrated actor in his day, probably best known by younger generations as Superman's adopting father in the final stages of his career. Sad to say, there's very little suspense in the narrative, and one wonders how great directors like Hitchcock, Zinneman or Kazan might have turned this into a great film. If you've only seen the newer version of the two films, take the time to watch the original. Some of the acting is exceptionally good, and it's mostly a well-crafted film. If nothing else, it's interesting to see how different generations of filmmakers can put totally differing spins on essentially the same story. Dale Roloff

Vacuum-cleaner heir and magnate David G. Stannard (Glenn Ford) is accustomed to getting his way. He will do anything to hold sway over his stuffed-shirt brother under the boardroom-portrait gaze of their late father, the family patriarch. David's marriage to Edith Stannard (Donna Reed) is surface-solid but fissured deep. Will it come apart when their only child, Andy, is kidnapped for ransom?

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?

Restrained performances and confined locations make this a powerful thriller. Glenn Ford is superb in the role, Leslie Neilson however is a tad over the top. Where this film succeeds is in sticking with the main character and never straying from his confinement or his pain, and when it comes to the hardest decision of his life, you're battered by the argueing group. Gritty and thought provoking.

After viewing the film and reflecting on what made the film tick, my kudos do not go to the actors, who appear to be the backbone of the film, but to a solid script and screenplay.

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.

This film was more or less taken from a famous midwest case of a boy kidnapped from a rich auto dealer's family in K. C., Mo. He was taken from a private school by a woman in a nurses uniform and the press in K. C. did hold off on the story until the ransom had been paid. The kidnappers were caught within 4 days, and the little boys body was found soon after. He had been killed the day he was kidnapped.

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