36 Hours
by George Seaton
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Eva Marie Saint, James Garner, John Banner, Rod Taylor, Werner PetersDirector: George Seaton
Brand: Warner Brothers
Cinematographer: Philip H. Lathrop
Writer: George Seaton
Editor: Adrienne Fazan
Producer: William Perlberg
Writer: Carl K. Hittleman
Writer: Luis H. Vance
Writer: Roald Dahl
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; French (Original Language); German (Original Language); Portuguese (Original Language); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.40:1
Running Time: 115 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-06-05
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of 36 Hours
Movie Review: A clever 1944 German con, doubled by James Garner, who at first thinks he came out of his coma in 1950
Summary: 4 Stars
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 proven 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. The DVD's black and white transfer looks fine. There are no extras.
Summary of 36 Hours
Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 06/05/2007 Run time: 115 minutes Rating: PgWWII films of the '60s were often half caper-movie, with ornate and muscular missions behind enemy lines dreamed up by the likes of Alistair MacLean. The caper in 36 Hours (1965)--which was dreamed up by Roald Dahl--reverses the dynamics. A U.S. diplomatic courier (James Garner) with knowledge of the plans for D-Day is kidnapped, drugged, and taken to a sanatorium surrounded by forest. He wakes up in the presence of solicitous doctors and staff who seem to be fellow Americans and ever so happy to have him back after all those years in a coma. War's long over, of course; we won--and isn't it a good thing the Allies scrapped that first, wacky invasion plan they almost used? The plan maybe he still remembers?... 36 Hours is an intriguing thriller up to a point--and the moment when Garner catches on to the trick is a grabber--but George Seaton's direction is pedestrian and the production has a soundstage-y look. Rod Taylor takes acting honors as the sympathetic German psychiatrist in charge of the plot, under the suspicious eyes of SS man Werner Peters. --Richard T. Jameson
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