Agonisingly bad. Proves yet once again that rubbish ages badly.
What is supposed to be serious ends up like The Marx Brothers meet 'Turkey Shoot', 'Psycho Ward' and 'Last Man Standing'.
To think Sinatra made 'From Here to Eternity' only the year before defies the imagination. But given the nature of Hollywood at the time he was not taken seriously and still had to sing for his supper, Oscar or not.
The director had no idea of feature film action - as his CV ultimately shows. TV westerns and cop shows to the end.
The final scene is the worst.
* * * MAJOR SPOILER * * *
The final shootout scene is totally hysterical. As the Presidential train approaches the station, the sniper (and after all the buildup and moral/emotional twaddle before, it isn't even the psycho Sinatra plays who is to be the shooter!!) is electrocuted. He fires his rifle wildly all over the place - on automatic, resulting in a brief gun battle when police return fire.
Then we see two seconds later in a close up when Sinatra picks up the rifle from the dead man, despite the long magazine (to give the impression it is a self-loading rifle), it appears to be a bolt action piece, set up for a left-handed rifleman!!
Sinatra's demise shortly thereafter is totally unbelievable, pathetically amateur even. The wounded sheriff, Sterling Hayden throws an ASHTRAY!! at him while he aims the rifle. A geriatric then tries to tackle him when he turns around. And the kid shoots wide, misses and throws the revolver across the room.
Meanwhile Sinatra, still obsessed for 'regime change', picks up the rifle again and aims...Only to be shot by the lady of the house. And again, using the same revolver, by the sheriff.
Directed by Kurosawa, the wounded cop would have rushed the sniper through a hail of bullets before bulldozing him through the window, both to fall screaming to their deaths.
In short, a bad script, badly directed.
The only hope may be that someone will do a straight-to-DVD remake, still set in the 1950's, with Mickey Rourke as the psycho.
Sinatra proves here that (like rough diamond Lee Marvin) he can be totally hopeless with a bad script and director. Or as we have seen in other work (for both men) totally brilliant and riveting when under the control of a great director with vision and the script to match.
What is supposed to be serious ends up like The Marx Brothers meet 'Turkey Shoot', 'Psycho Ward' and 'Last Man Standing'.
To think Sinatra made 'From Here to Eternity' only the year before defies the imagination. But given the nature of Hollywood at the time he was not taken seriously and still had to sing for his supper, Oscar or not.
The director had no idea of feature film action - as his CV ultimately shows. TV westerns and cop shows to the end.
The final scene is the worst.
* * * MAJOR SPOILER * * *
The final shootout scene is totally hysterical. As the Presidential train approaches the station, the sniper (and after all the buildup and moral/emotional twaddle before, it isn't even the psycho Sinatra plays who is to be the shooter!!) is electrocuted. He fires his rifle wildly all over the place - on automatic, resulting in a brief gun battle when police return fire.
Then we see two seconds later in a close up when Sinatra picks up the rifle from the dead man, despite the long magazine (to give the impression it is a self-loading rifle), it appears to be a bolt action piece, set up for a left-handed rifleman!!
Sinatra's demise shortly thereafter is totally unbelievable, pathetically amateur even. The wounded sheriff, Sterling Hayden throws an ASHTRAY!! at him while he aims the rifle. A geriatric then tries to tackle him when he turns around. And the kid shoots wide, misses and throws the revolver across the room.
Meanwhile Sinatra, still obsessed for 'regime change', picks up the rifle again and aims...Only to be shot by the lady of the house. And again, using the same revolver, by the sheriff.
Directed by Kurosawa, the wounded cop would have rushed the sniper through a hail of bullets before bulldozing him through the window, both to fall screaming to their deaths.
In short, a bad script, badly directed.
The only hope may be that someone will do a straight-to-DVD remake, still set in the 1950's, with Mickey Rourke as the psycho.
Sinatra proves here that (like rough diamond Lee Marvin) he can be totally hopeless with a bad script and director. Or as we have seen in other work (for both men) totally brilliant and riveting when under the control of a great director with vision and the script to match.