October 7, 1954: The film Suddenly premieres, directed by Lewis Allen, and starring Frank Sinatra in a non-singing role, as a PTSD-affected World War II veteran determined to assassinate the President of the United States.
In the film, "Suddenly" is the name of a small town in California, where the President is scheduled to make a stop. Sinatra plays John Baron, leader of 3 men who enter the home of the Benson family, which is on top of a hill overlooking the town's train station. They claim to be part of the FBI detail checking up on security measures, but they take the family hostage, revealing themselves to be attempting to assassinate the President, as the house gives them a perfect location for a sniper, Baron.
The family consists of Ellen (Nancy Gates), whose husband was killed in the recent Korean War; her son, Peter, a.k.a. "Pidge" (Kim Charney); and her father-in-law, also Peter, a.k.a. "Pop," who figures out that the men are not what they say they are, because he had been a Secret Service Agent, protecting President Calvin Coolidge 30 years earlier. The town's Sheriff, Tod Shaw (Sterling Hayden), attempts to defuse the situation.
Between them, Ellen and Pop do their best to stop the assassins, but the Sheriff apparently got a message to the Secret Service, as the train doesn't stop, foiling the attempt. Ellen shoots Baron, killing him.
In real life, there had been an attempt to assassinate Harry Truman just 4 years earlier, but no President had actually been assassinated since William McKinley, 53 years earlier. Whether Lee Harvey Oswald, 15 years old when Suddenly came out, saw it is unknown, but he had to have been aware of it.
Prior to Suddenly, all attempted assassinations of Presidents had been with handguns; the film showed Sinatra’s character as a sniper with a rifle, as Oswald became (or so the official story goes).
In 1986, the movie was colorized for home video by Hal Roach Studios -- and Sinatra, a.k.a. "Ol' Blue Eyes," was shown with brown eyes. Oops...
Sinatra starred (without singing) in a similar film in 1962, The Manchurian Candidate -- this time, charged with preventing an assassination.
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October 7, 1954 was a Monday. The baseball season had ended 5 days earlier, when the New York Giants swept the Cleveland Indians in the World Series. Football was in midweek: There would be no Monday Night Football for another 16 years. And the NBA season began 23 days later.
But this was the opening night of the NHL season, and 2 games were played. The Montreal Canadiens beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 4-2 at the Montreal Forum. And the Detroit Red Wings, beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 2-1 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. The New York Rangers and the Boston Bruins were not scheduled.
