36 Hours (1964)

a war film. not an ordinary one. because, more than a story, it is a form of embroidery. it is something who makes it different and that fact is the key for discover a movie who has the cast, the music and the script as impressive pillars not only for artistic value but for force of message. a film about sacrifices, touching and precise, out of ordinaries temptations of genre and seductive for a kind of beauty who has as source the art to choose the right actors. adventure, love, tension and honor , vulnerability and force are ingredients of it and that could not be a surprise. but the doses and the art of use is wise and that detail transforms one of so many war movies in a certainly must see it.

Saddled with an over-verbose script and mollycoddlingly dreary dialogue direction, this overtly promising spy melodrama turns out to be only intermittently exciting. It could have been considerably improved by really ruthless cutting. 115 minutes is too long to sustain suspense unless something really exciting is happening on-screen all the time. Here, all the unnecessary and often phony explanations could be judiciously cut to the bone. Another problem is that Rod Taylor is definitely not a convincing German – even with a dubbed voice to help him out. What's worse is that I didn't find either James Garner or Eva Marie Saint at all charismatic. Their verbose, over-padded dialogue merely serves as an excuse for one monotonous close-up after another. In fact, although lensed for the cinema wide screen, director George Seaton seems to have placed TV sales far more firmly in his mind. I believe this picture holds the record for the number of close-ups in an anamorphic movie. Widescreen framing is only used once or twice in the entire production. The rest of the slates are simply filled out with empty background space. Fortunately, production values are otherwise up to standard, and the climactic escape has its moments of suspense and genuine excitement (plus some human relief contributed by John Banner as a practical Home Guardsman). Of the other players, only Werner Peters, who contributes an effective characterization as the chief villain, deserves mention.

George Seaton was a Hollywood A-level writer and director who could tell a story efficiently and professionally. He also knew movies had to sell tickets to be successful. He kept that in mind while creating, often with William Perlberg as producer, movies that were satisfyingly A caliber and watchable, even when they were serious by Hollywood standards. He didn't mind threading in irony or even a message or two, but usually these were plot driven. Seaton, in other words, knew his way around. And so we have 36 Hours. It's not about the terrible conflicts of wartime exigencies as The Counterfeit Traitor is. It's not a sad, uncomfortable story of love and sacrifice that The Country Girl is. And it's certainly not a bit of romantic fluff as Teacher's Pet is. 36 Hours is a fine, efficient, wartime yarn, nothing more, nothing less...and that, for me, is good enough. Major Jefferson Pike (James Garner) is an Allied intelligence officer who has been flying between London and Lisbon to pick up information from a clerk in the German embassy. It's May 31, 1944. Pike is ordered to make one more flight...and the success of the Allied invasion only days away may hang in the balance. Hitler is convinced the invasion will take place in the Pas de Calais region. The Allies are doing everything possible to the keep the real location at Normandy from leaking out. The Germans, of course, are doing every thing they can to either confirm Pas de Calais or learn the real location. German agents, with Pike now in Lisbon, slip him a mickey. When he wakes up he's in a U. S. Army hospital in Germany. It's May 15, 1950. His American doctor (Rod Taylor) tells him he's been in a coma for six years. Germany lost and the Allies occupy the country. Wilkie is President. Former president Roosevelt is recuperating again at Warm Springs, Georgia. G.I. patients greet Pike by name. U. S. doctors aid his recovery. And now that the war is won, there's no secret about where in France the Allies actually invaded six years earlier. So tell us about it, they ask Pike. Pike's doctor, of course, is a German. Major Walter Gerber (Rod Taylor) is a skilled psychologist. The "U. S. military hospital" is a phony, a carefully prepared installation near the Swiss border where everyone -- patients, doctors, nurses -- are Germans carefully selected for their flawless English. And speaking of nurses, Pike's nurse, Anna Hedler (Eva Marie Saint), is introduced as his wife. Gerber has organized all this in a life-or-death gamble. He must convince Pike -- within 36 hours -- to volunteer the location of the invasion of France. Gerber, however, has someone watching over his shoulder. Otto Schack, a Gestapo interrogator, is equally convinced the experiment will fail. He is pressing to use the proved methods of Gestapo interrogation. All this makes for an intriguing and clever, if unlikely, con. But it works. We sure outfoxed the Germans with Normandy, Pike says, and gives the details with pride. But then Pike notices a small paper cut on his hand which is barely healed...a paper cut he now remembers getting two days ago in London. He realizes what must be happening. The con game now becomes a deadly cat and mouse game. Somehow he must convince Gerber and Schack that he knew what was going on all along and had conned them into thinking he had deliberately misled them away from the Pas de Calais. The last third of the movie -- now with the Germans conned thanks in part to lousy weather on June 5 -- becomes a race for Pike to save his skin. Can Pike escape and make it across the border to Switzerland? Will Gerber prove he's a good German and help? And will Pike take with him Anna, a woman who was forced into her role by threats to return her to Ravensbruck? Garner serves up a puzzled, troubled man who finally figures out the score. Taylor gives us a dedicated German who, however uneasily, realizes his "experiment" has personal costs he didn't bargain on. Saint does a fine job in a role that doesn't give much latitude. And John Banner, as an aging, fat German Home Guard sergeant who shows up during the movie's last 15 minutes, nearly steals the show. Weak spots? Otto Schack. He's just an old-style Hollywood Gestapo man, slimy and opportunistic. Seaton also gives both Saint and Taylor turgid opportunities to reflect on their past and, in Gerber's case, his good motives. And as professional and experienced a screenwriter as Seaton was, the movie at nearly two hours could use some trimming. Still, 36 hours is just what it is, a good war yarn built around a clever double con. We should count our blessings.

Of some movies it's just amazing to see how unknown and under-appreciated they are. "36 Hours" should had been a classic movie by now, since it has all the right ingredients for it in it but it yet remains a fairly unknown WW II thriller, despite it's great cast and writers involved.What makes this movie so great is how incredibly and refreshing original this movie is, though in the end the movie does become a bit too formulaic. The concept of the movie is great thriller material. A couple of days before D-Day, an American major is captured by the Germans during World War II. They attempt to brainwash him into believing that years have past and the war is over and that he is safe in an Allied hospital, so that he will tell about the Allied invasion plans, involving the Normandy invasion, as if they have happened in the past time. It's a real psychological thriller, that due to its story also has a certain unpleasant and unreal science-fiction like atmosphere all over it. The movie has some great and solid thriller moments in it, that makes this movie an unforgettable one and an extremely underrated one in its genre. It's sort of too bad that in the end the movie gets overwritten, by leaving its original concept and turning into a more formulaic WW II thriller genre movie, that tries to look more clever and complicated than it in fact really is. The movie could had definitely- and perhaps also should had been 20 minutes shorter and should had ended earlier. It downgrades the movie but definitely not enough to prevent this movie from being a great and original one.The movie has a great thriller build up. featuring lots of spy elements in it. It's psychological, while the second halve turns into more physical, which is also one of the reasons why the second halve of the movie does not works as good as the first. It isn't the fastest going movie, like we're accustomed to from '60's movies. Not that it matters though. The movie is good and tense enough to keep your interest for its entire running time, without ever looking at the clock.It was a good choice that the movie was filmed entirely in atmospheric black & white. It gives the movie a more authentic feeling, as well as a unpleasant and almost alien like feeling. Luckily the movie also features some well placed and refreshing humor, to keep things light and also provide the movie with a certain entertainment-level.James Garner is good and also believable in his role. He also shares some good screen time with Rod Taylor who also gives a good performance and plays an unpredictable character. Really great in her role was Eva Marie Saint, one year before she and James Garner would team up again for "Grand Prix". She plays a great and strong female character. Really not that many actresses around in the '60's to play a role like that and do it so believable as she did. It definitely makes Eva Marie Saint one of the best actresses of her generation. Let's hope that "Superman Returns" won't be her last role. Werner Peters also plays a good stereotypical like SS-officer, who in a way is the comical note of the movie, though in the end his character turns more and more evil.A movie most definitely worth seeing, if you get the chance to.8/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/