Ransom

Viewers familiar with the 1996 Mel Gibson blockbuster Ransom may be disappointed that there are no smirking villains, car chases, or bloody fistfights in the original 1956 version of the same story. Even so, the earlier Ransom! has much to offer on a purely dramatic level. Based on the Richard ...more

Alex Segal's 1956 low-budget thriller Ransom! hides behind its two-dimensional kidnapping premise as a smokescreen. The film's roots run deeper than an abduction -- so much so that the kidnapping, in retrospect, appears a mere afterthought. Segal and his co-writers (Cyril Hume and Richard Maibaum) build the gestalt of their story around David G. Stannard (Glenn Ford), a deeply flawed and errant father figure, who is not only morally impure (he pilfers lumber for his son's clubhouse, illicitly, ...more