Home invasion movies get under my skin. I guess one could say they are usually successful, since that’s the goal of them. Still, it is a sub-genre I don’t actively seek out.
The most disturbing such scene I have had the displeasure of encountering in a film was in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Needless to say, 1955’s The Desperate Hours does not have any moments anywhere near as appalling as anything in that movie. Still, it has a nastier edge to it than I was anticipating.
At the start of the film, nothing much seems to be happening in the suburb where Fredric March lives with his family, so I guess the hours aren’t that desperate yet. Richard Eyer is the son who is getting to the age where he doesn’t want his parents doting on him. Mary Murphy, as his oldest sister, is discovering she has developed a figure that is catching men’s eyes.
Martha Scott is the matriarch of the family. She’s the last to be left in the house when the others have gone to school and work. The radio is on, but she fails to take notice of the news report of three convicts who have escaped from prison.
That trio is Humphrey Bogart, Robert Middleton and Dewey Martin. Bogey is the oldest and the clear leader of the group. Martin is his much younger brother and the only of the group who seems to have retained enough of his humanity to possibly be reintegrated into society. Middleton in the biggest, the heaviest and most temperamental of the group—a dangerous combination.
Still, Bogart may be the most lethal of the bunch, as he is intelligent, spiteful and hell-bent on self-preservation. He is very effective here as a straight-up villain, which is actually a type of role he was rarely cast in. This is clearly different than the anti-heroes that were his stock in trade.
It is no surprise it is the March house they invade. Bogie had been drawn to the house because of the boy’s bike carelessly resting on the front lawn. He reasons a family with a young kid will have ample reason to comply. That he even thinks that way is pretty scary.
When March and Murphy return home, they discover the gang’s car in their driveway.
Keep this is mind if anything like this ever happens to you: one or both of you should run straight to the nearest neighbor and tell them to call the police. Of course, that’s not what these to do, and pretty soon all four family members are under Bogie’s control.
March radiates frustration at the helplessness he feels in this situation. Eyer is losing faith in his father, seeing him as emasculated. Really, I found Eyer to be an annoying little shit, but I guess this is how his character would react in this scenario. Some of the most irritating developments in the plot are because the kid decides to do something heroic that will only end up putting others in jeopardy.
Scott is rather limited in her role, but the script does give her character some opportunities to show bravery, though not much independence. Murphy fares better in this regard, and seems to show the most backbone of anybody in her family. At one point, she even bites down hard on Martin’s hand as she tries to wrestle a gun away from him.
Because of the vintage of this film, it can’t go in many of the directions a modern version of this tale most likely would. Still, it suggests the potential for such horrific things as for Murphy to be raped. There is a pervasive and lingering threat of violence throughout the runtime, even if one is fully aware this is a film bound by certain codes.
I am surprised the production code allowed some oddly subversive portrayals of many police officers and detectives as assholes. To varying degrees, each of them views the family as necessary collateral damage in apprehending the fugitives. Most appalling is when March reminds the heavily armed law enforcement personnel his family is in that house, and one officer barks, “You aren’t telling us how to do our job, are you?”
One element of this production I found odd is some of the weirdest use of rear-projection I have seen. The escapees selecting their house is conveyed by a shot through what is supposed to be the passenger side window of their car, so we are looking at previously shot footage projected on a screen, with the frame of a car window around the edges. Another odd series of shots are from the point of the view of the fugitives again, except this time they are monitoring from between cracks in curtains and doors the behavior of Murphy’s beau, played by Gig Young.
So many aspects of this picture are ugly enough that I was surprised William Wyler was the director of this. It isn’t like there is an absence of humanity here, but this film explores different, and less pleasant, aspects of the human condition than the deep compassion shown in The Best Years of Our Lives. And it definitely isn’t Roman Holiday.
I was left of two minds concerning The Desperate Hours. The performances are solid and believable, but we are talking about some deeply unlikeable characters I didn’t want to spend any more time with. Still, somebody playing a thug is successful if they scare and repulse the audience. That’s true of the film overall but, by accomplishing its goal of unnerving the viewer, the result is something I can’t imagine wanting to watch again.
Dir: William Wyler
Starring Humphrey Bogart, Fredric March
Watched on Arrow Video blu-ray