36 Hours

Great, offbeat WWII thriller from The Spy Who Came in From the Cold Genre. If you've ever wondered where the Sgt. Schultz character developed from Hogan's Heroes - watch and be surprised! Tight Script and excellent performances from Saint, Taylor, and Garner. Filmed in B & W to enhance the intensity.

This B&W movie "36 Hours" is now being repeated on digital TV quite regularly, and I never tire of watching it. The WW II storyline, written by Roald Dahl & Carl Hittleman, is an odd one. It has to be one of the most implausible, yet somehow believable tales ever to be thought up.

A US "hospital" run by Nazi Intelligence has been set up in Germany to enable secrets to be winkled out from it's "patients" (i.e. prisoners). The gimmick is that the inmates are led to believe that the war has been over for a number of years in favour of the Allies.

The new arrival a certain Maj. Jefferson Pike (James Garner) is an Overlorder (i.e. someone who is "au fait" with the plans of the forthcoming Normandy landings). After being kidnapped in Lisbon he is brought unconscious to the hospital and given necessary ageing treatment. On regaining consciousness he is told that he is suffering from amnesia, and has been a hospital patient for years, but he must now start remembering.

A disguised Wehrmacht psychiatrist Maj. Walter Gerber (an American born German, but a good guy at heart) (Rod Taylor) is given the task of unlocking the valuable knowledge. If he fails, he and his hospital are for the chop. (And the Allies will succeed in their invasion etc. etc.) Anna Hedler, his nurse, and supposedly Pike's wife, is an ex-concentration camp internee (Eve Marie Saint) who will do anything not to be sent back. End of stage one, but will the secrets come out in stage two?...watch the movie to find out.

"36 Hours", ably directed by George Seaton, is an intriguing movie that holds the attention right to the last. It's an intelligent script, complemented by intelligent acting, with suspenseful music holding it all together. Not exactly a classic, but I certainly think it will last the test of time (and on reflection...I suppose it already has done). Personally I love it.

This is one of my all-time favorite films. Fortunately, we have a video store near us where I can rent old films like this and enjoy the creative story whenever I choose. The main plot of this story, along with the various subplots, held my interest from the beginning. After seeing the film just once, I could recall so many of the details because the film is just THAT GOOD! It is a well-casted film and one that I wish would be shown on TV (I can't recall the last time it was) so that others could become aware of this really suspenseful film. I've rented this movie for my kids and my husband to see because it hasn't been televised and I wanted them to be able to experience the same riveting viewing experience that I've enjoyed so many times.

George Seaton had already written and directed the very impressive The Counterfeit Traitor when he turned his attention to this absorbing and cleverly-plotted thriller. Once again the film is set during WWII and once again Seaton weaves an exciting story against the backcloth of that intriguing and terrifying period of history.

Major Jefferson Pike (James Garner) is an American intelligence officer who is kidnapped and drugged en route to Lisbon during the days approaching the D-Day Landings. Pike's original mission before his capture was to pass on misleading information to the Germans, intended to trick them into expecting the Allies to storm ashore at Calais rather than the actual intended target area of the Normandy beaches. When Pike awakens, he is unknowingly in a secret compound in Bavaria, and the D-Day attack is still 36 hours away from actually taking place. He is told by disguised Nazi spy, Major Walter Gerber (Rod Taylor), that the war is over and that he has been suffering from amnesiac lapses for the past six years. Gerber's plan is to convince Pike that the war ended years previously with Allied victory and that it is safe to reveal details about the D-Day Landings.... details which would, in fact, be very useful to the German forces in the hours approaching the top-secret Allied attack.

It is a very interesting plot, and is well-handled. Rod Taylor's performance as the slippery Nazi trickster is exceptionally good, while Garner handles his slightly dull role (as the hero with sensitive information which he is unsure about revealing) with efficiency. The crisp black and white photography - unusual for a film made in the Technicolour-obsessed '60s - adds to the film's verisimilitude and sense of period, giving it a documentary-like feel. While the proceedings are stretched out to a rather lengthy 115 minutes, the film doesn't become significantly tedious and manages to keep the viewer excited (even though we know, because of the real-life success of the D-Day invasion, that the audacious Nazi plot is doomed to fail). 36 Hours is a solid, suspenseful yarn which should satisfy anyone who enjoys stories about wartime intrigue and audacious masquerades.

Really enjoyed this film, an engaging mix of psychological banter with pre-D-Day espionage tension.

The best scenes for me were the dialogues between James Garner and Rod Taylor, they'd make a great film on their own. Garner has that amazing combination of intellect and machismo - he can debate the moral aspect of duty and then knock out a guard just as convincingly

Eva Marie Saint's performance is very strong too as the concentration-camp victim unable to express emotion after the trauma that she has experienced. The power of Roald Dahl's writing comes through here, as she acts as a constant reminder to us of the grim realities of the war in the context of the other charismatic characters.