Harockerce What a beautiful movie!

GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Twilightfa Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

JasparLamarCrabb David Miller directed this noir and it's loony in the best possible ways. It's outrageously plotted and impeccably mounted and features some of Joan Crawford's best post-MILDRED PIERCE acting. Crawford is a profoundly wealthy heiress/playwright who falls wildly in love with actor Jack Palance (after having him fired from her play!). Mayhem ensues as Crawford & Palance head to San Francisco where their courtship is tied together in a series of montages. Miller keeps this fast paced thriller moving and he's helped along by a stunning Elmer Bernstein score. Crawford emotes a lot in her own inimitable style but really has just one moment of pure Crawford camp...as she discovers that the diabolical Palance is not at all what he seems. The great supporting cast includes Gloria Grahame, Bruce Bennett and a very young Mike Connors as "Junior."

DKosty123 Predating Hitchcocks Vertigo by 6 Years, this movie is an RKO production with a very good cast that has some scenes which are choppy. In a way, there are several irony's here which are legend. Supposed Joan Crawford wanted Clark Gable for Jack Palances role. Gable claimed he was too old for this role. David Miller, who directed this is said to have convinced Crawford to cast Palance. If this is so, the first scene is a reflection of real life where Crawford is not happy with Palance rehearsing her new play and fires him. Legend has it that Crawford then becomes interested (in real life) with Palance but in real life he was having an affair with co- star Gloria Grahame. If this is true, it might be why Gloria divorced in 1952, but her next spouse was not Palance. (Grahame would have 4 spouses in real life.)Early on the film has some things that will remind the viewer of Hitchcock. The use of a stair case early on and then the film moving from the east, through Chicago by train and then relocating for most of the film to San Francisco. The golden gate bridge and the hilly streets of the Golden Gate city are featured throughout the film from this point.At first, it seems Palances character is just out for revenge for being fired. Then it gets more complicated. Edna Sherry who wrote the novel only has one other film to her credit as a writer, 1929 Thru Different Eyes which has little information about it other than the cast on IMDb featuring Warner Baxter.The atmosphere in Sudden Fear is very much like a film noir, the glorious dark black and white which is nothing like Hitchcocks glorious color Vertigo, but you have to remember this is an independent production company releasing through RKO who in 1952 was nearing it's end and of being sold to Lucy and Desi. The film is ambitious and clever but the budget here must have been quite tight which might account for some choppy scenes.A viewer who has watched the TV series Mannix will recognize a young Mike Connors in this in a supporting role as a love interest for Gloria Grahame along with Palance and he is also a friend of Crawfords character which makes for some lively scripting.There is a well staged chase sequence in the latter part of the film. Overall a film that could have been better but falls a little short of classic noir, and way short of Hitchcock's Vertigo though the suspense of Crawfords character can pull the viewer in along with the plot and counter-plot aspects of the main characters.This recently premiered on Turner Classic Movies.

Shawn Spencer I liked Sudden Fear but I didn't love it. On the plus side, Joan Crawford is always a force of nature, and this film is no exception; and Jack Palance and Gloria Grahame give good performances as well. The cinematography is good and the use of San Francisco locations adds luster.My trouble is with the script. The first half of the movie drags a bit--almost as if they are trying to lull you to sleep--before they whack you over the head with the first big twist. I love twists in a plot, but they need to be believable and organic to the characters. This one felt contrived, and the character's response to the twists unbelievable. It was like watching three different personalities playing the one part -- with no real explanation for WHY the sudden shifts and turns of personality.

writers_reign Seen today, sixty years later, this comes across as an out-and-out meller with some serious flaws - midnight in San Francisco and not a soul on the streets, and not just ONE street but several. When you start noticing things like that while the film is still RUNNING (and these are climactic scenes, the very last reel when, if everybody is doing their job, we should be so caught up in the action that we don't notice things like that) it's a sure sign that something is wrong and not JUST sloppy writing though that, of course, is where it starts. It's in a tradition of 'revenge' movies where a 'creative' person is rejected in the first reel and sets out to even the score (for a fine example see the French film 'The Page Turner' where a promising child pianist loses out on a scholarship because one of the judges is preoccupied; time passes, the child grows up and lands a job in the judge's household and guess what), in this case actor Jack Palance is set for the lead in author Crawford's new play; everyone likes him, director, producer, but author Crawford says no and Palance is back on the street. Next thing they're married and he's plotting with his real love, Gloria Grahame, to give Crawford the business and wind up with her fortune - she is, natch, a millionairess on the side. Of its ilk its well done if you don't count the risible deserted Frisco and probably had much more impact in fifty two. Worth seeing but not a keeper.