The Desperate Hours

Humphrey Bogart made a career playing complicated criminals.  Escaped con Glen Griffin in 1955’s The Desperate Hours might not be his most memorable, but it’s a performance that rides on the shoulders of all the gangsters and hoodlums he’s played before.  Director William Wyler’s film is less a home invasion thriller than a rallying cry for the moral fortitude of the nuclear family.  So it’s fitting that this is Bogart’s second-to-last role…taking his final bow as an urban outlaw before losing out to the suburban dream.

After breaking out of prison, Griffin, his younger brother Dewey and a violent third-wheel named Kobish choose a random house on a quiet Indianapolis street to hide from the law.  The Hilliards (husband, wife, two kids) are held hostage until Griffin’s girlfriend arrives with their traveling money…which becomes tragically delayed.  Things become dangerously tense as Daniel Hillard (Fredric March) suspects his wife and kids won’t escape unharmed even if Griffin gets his way.  Meanwhile, the cops are closing in, putting the entire family at risk of a deadly shootout.

 

Time may have dulled the edges of Wyler’s film a bit, but it can still be a rough and harrowing affair.  Aside from some regrettably feminine melodramatic knucklebiting, the cast sells the material well, including some good acting from child star Richard Eyer as the youngest Hilliard, Ralphie.  Besides Bogart, who looks convincingly haggard and past his prime, it’s the mentally unstable character of Kobish who gives the film its dangerous unpredictability.  A drunken, lascivious hulk even his own gang can’t control, he’s the archetype for every lecherous home invader on the cinematic horizon, from Straw Dogs to Last House on the Left.

 

Previously produced as a novel and a play, the film version retains that staginess despite opening things up visually from time to time.  A good twenty minutes could have been shaved off those desperate hours, probably everything having to do with Arthur Kennedy’s obsessed police detective, whose backstory with Griffin is awkwardly shoehorned into a radio broadcast.  But the psychology of Wyler’s film, reinforcing the strength of the traditional family unit against invaders within and without, is a fascinating last stand for the white picket fence and 2.5 kids American dream.  In a society built around well-defined gender roles and a 30-year mortgage, Griffin and his gang never stood a chance.

 

Arrow Video presents this Paramount classic with a brand-new restoration from a 6K scan of the VistaVision negative and it looks every bit as good as you’d expect it to!  Extras include two visual essays on the film’s theme and impact along with an audio commentary and interview with Catherine Wyler.  The package also includes lobby cards and an illustrated collector’s booklet.  Bring on more classics!

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