Cinema: The New Pictures, Feb. 13, 1956

Ransom! (M-G-M). The ransom that is intended to purchase the life of a kidnaped child is more likely to buy his death. The logic of this statement is inescapable: with the cash in hand, the criminals no longer need the child alive for possible use as an instrument of extortion, and in fact they are much better off with him dead if he is old enough to bear witness against them. Furthermore, a kidnaper faces the death penalty in many states, so what difference does a murder make?

Logic, however, is one thing; feelings are quite another. What parent would have the...

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