The Desperate Hours (1955) 7/10
Three escaped cons led by Glenn Griffin (Humphrey Bogart) hold a suburban family prisoner, using their home as a hideout while waiting for the money that Glenn’s girlfriend is bringing.
The Desperate Hours plays on multiple levels. On the surface, it’s a taut crime thriller. There’s the battle of wits between Glenn Griffin and family patriarch Dan Hilliard (Frederic March) as well as the conflicts within the crime team, which consists of Glenn’s moody younger brother Hal (Dewey Martin) and Kobish (Robert Middleton) a loose cannon; big goon with a bad temper. As well, there are the tensions within the family; the little boy that wants his daddy to be brave, the fierce desire to protect one another, the struggle to figure out if cooperation or defiance is the wiser course.
One of the fascinating things about this crime is that it’s not a one-room drama. Using the rest of the family as hostages, the criminals are able to allow family members to leave at various times, and their forays into the “real world,” away from the nightmare of unreality in their home, are among the most frightening and effective scenes. It is fascinating to watch daughter Cindy (Mary Murphy) go on a date with her boyfriend (eternally annoying Gig Young) in order to prevent him from entering the house and discovering their secret.
Another level is apparent as I describe the surface; the Suburban Family with a Secret. The movie speaks to the idea that you don’t know what’s going on behind the recently-painted front door, the neatly-mown lawn, the bicycle left carelessly out front. It’s unfortunate that the movie doesn’t work more with this subtext, because it offers a layer of fascination.
Finally, and least effectively, is the idea of Good versus Evil. The Hilliard family is more than a decent family, they are A Decent Family representing All That Is Good and Wholesome. They are the Donna Reed Show. They are vaguely nauseating. There are touches of character development, and indeed, I like the marriage of Dan and Ellie (Martha Scott), as they discover each other in the process of being challenged by their experience. But their wholesomeness is painted as having a level of meaning that defies real character development, as though the simple act of living in the suburbs and wearing a tie to work is inherently a moral value. Glenn Griffin addresses this, resents it, despises it, but Hal Griffin longs for it, and we are meant to see middle class suburbia not as a class or as a lifestyle, but as a truly American aspiration. In all of the criminal’s rage towards this family and their life, that is the message.
And it’s not much of a message, not because it’s dated, but because it was never really true; it was always preachy, even in 1955.
Other than the head-to-head brilliance of Bogey and Frederic March, the cast doesn’t have much to offer. A side of bland with that bland describes the family, the police and FBI searching for the convicts (including B-movie stalwarts Arthur Kennedy and Whit Bissell), and Hal Griffin. Kobish is creepy but a better actor could have done more with the role. No, this is a two-man show.
The Desperate Hours is worth seeing for the tension created by its stars, and for its tense and well-designed crime, despite its flaws.
