The Red House / Suddenly

THE RED HOUSE - Lovers of film noir have long treasured this eerie gem, produced during what has come to be regarded as Hollywood's classic noir period and offered here in stunning high-definition Blu-ray. Edward G. Robinson plays an aging farmer with a dark secret he's trying to keep hidden. He and his sister Ellen (Judith Anderson) have raised Meg (Allene Roberts) since she was a little girl, after her parents mysteriously disappeared. But now Meg is coming of age, and bringing a male friend from high school around to help with chores on the farm. The teens are warned against wandering into the nearby woods, where terrifying screams have been heard in the night emanating from an abandoned red house. But curiosity threatens to get the better of them. SUDDENLY - With a plot line inspired by then President Eisenhower's train trips to Palm Springs, Calif., Suddenly finds Baron (Frank Sinatra) holding pacifist war widow Ellen Benson (Nancy Gates), her family and the town sheriff (Sterling Hayden) hostage while preparing to shoot the president. Portraying a psychopath about whom Sinatra stated, "I have never seen on the screen any character as consistently brutal as this man is," he turns in a dramatic performance which ranks alongside his classics. Suddenly packs a punch so powerful that for two decades following President Kennedy's assassination, the film was never shown on television. Audiences today will remain as fascinated and unsettled as they were at the time of the film's initial release.