Bombs are interesting things. The really good ones, when they have done their work, leave as the only evidence they have ever existed the destruction that remains. THE DEVIL AT 4 O'CLOCK is not that kind of bomb. No long term damage appears to have been done to anyone's career. However, one would not expect so anticipated and expensive a movie to, like the island, disappear without a trace
In THE DEVIL AT 4'OCLOCK not one cliché is left unturned. Spencer Tracey plays a combative, faithless priest; Sinatra plays the wiseguy leader of trio of smarmy, `harmless' convicts; Kerwin Matthews (wasted) plays a idealistic young priest; Barbara Luna plays a `too good to be true' blind girl; we have a athiestic, Samaritan doctor, a reformed prostitute
and on and on. The performances are so good (especially the radiant Barbara Luna) and production so handsome and assured, one could forgive the excesses and melodrama except for the wretched ending. Even thought he writing has been so bad to that point, one still must wonder if the ending was changed to suit Frank Sinatra's ego.
At the risk of being disrespectful and sacrilegious, I still cannot help but ponder. When Sinatra and Tracey reached the pearly gates, and if St. Peter told them, `You must spend a [hopefully] brief time in Purgatory.' `What was it,' they asked, `The drinking,? The fighting? The swearing? The adultery?' `None of those,' St. Peter replied, `It was THE DEVIL AT 4 O'CLOCK.'
At the risk of being disrespectful and sacrilegious, I still cannot help but ponder. When Sinatra and Tracey reached the pearly gates, and if St. Peter told them, `You must spend a [hopefully] brief time in Purgatory.' `What was it,' they asked, `The drinking,? The fighting? The swearing? The adultery?' `None of those,' St. Peter replied, `It was THE DEVIL AT 4 O'CLOCK.'