Price: $2.50 as of 11/08/2009 08:33 EST
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 0031504055098
Format: HiFi Sound, Dolby, Closed-captioned, Black & White
Label: Paramount
Languages: EnglishUnknown
Manufacturer: Paramount
Model: 5509
Number Of Items: 1
Publication Date: 1989
Publisher: Paramount
Running Time: 112 unknown-units
Studio: Paramount
Theatrical Release Date: 1955
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display
Editorial Review:
Product Description:
: Dan Hilliard is a comfortable upper-middle-class executive with a wife and two children and a pleasant suburban home. His world seems quite in order, quite predictable. But then convicted murderer Glenn Griffin escapes from prison with his younger brother Hal and a ruthless thug named Kobish. The three escapees take over the Hilliard home, using it as an unsuspected resting place while a police manhunt scours the city for them. Glenn Griffin finds Dan Hilliard to be no pushover, but rather a determined fighter out to protect his home and family from this criminal invasion. But is a middle-aged businessman a match for three wiley killers? Humphrey Bogart is at his villainous best in William Wyler's taut home-invasion thriller, The Desperate Hours. Sharply adapted by John Hayes from his own fact-based novel and Broadway play, this marked a slight departure for Wyler, whose celebrated versatility is on ready display as Bogart--leading a panicky trio of escaped convicts--seizes control of a suburban family in the (dis)comfort of their own home. The domestic terror (similarly dramatized in the 1954 potboiler Suddenly) escalates as cautious patriarch Frederic March waits for an opportunity to retaliate, while the police (led by Arthur Kennedy) close in for an ambush. Viewers may recognize the home's exterior from TV's Leave It to Beaver, while its interior gives Wyler a sealed chamber for nail-biting advances and setbacks--and Bogey was rarely better at portraying ruthless, unpredictable menace. Poorly remade in 1990, The Desperate Hours remains a potent precursor to the many similar films (like Panic Room) that followed its enduring example.
|
