Based on play based on a novel based on true events, The Desperate Hours is a William Wyler noir thriller about a trio of escaped convicts that hide from the police in the suburbs, specifically the house owned by the Hilliard family. The outlaws terrorize the family until their own paranoia begins to unravel them. Glenn, played by Humphrey Bogart, is the clear ringleader of the cons, assumedly because he is played by Humphrey Bogart. Hal, Glenn’s younger brother, and the trigger-happy Sam complete the trio, and together, they make life increasingly difficult for Hilliard patriarch, Daniel (Fredric March, who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan).

Daniel has to keep his family safe from the threatening villains, as well as the police, who decide the best plan of action is to go into the Hilliard house guns a-blazin’. In the end, it’s going to have to be Daniel on his own who saves his family by outsmarting Glenn. True to noir fashion, the evil-doers get their comeuppance in the end, but the road to get there is increasingly bumpy and nerve-wracking.

What makes The Desperate Hours a formative member of film noir are the characters. The convicts are menacing and play into their evil tendencies. They’re the kind of villains that you love to hate. Daniel is a father that will go to the ends of his earth to protect what’s his. It doesn’t hurt that two Hollywood heavy hitters, Bogart and March, are leading this film. When one of them isn’t on screen, the film surprisingly drags.

It doesn’t have the snappy dialogue of a Billy Wilder film, or a dastardly femme fatale like in Detour or Leave Her to Heaven, but it does do one thing exceptionally well. It makes you feel the fear of the Hilliard family and imposes an “it could happen to anyone” angle through March’s everyman performance and the claustrophobic camera work that make us feel a part of the events. In the end, it’s not the best sendoff for Humphrey Bogart’s tough-guy roles, but it does have Bogart tell the Hilliard son that his father knows “where it’s buttered”, which I’m sure is a trophy that can go right next to his Oscar for The African Queen.