''36 Hours'' is a 1965 German-American

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

suspense film Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre ...

, based on the 1944 short story "

Beware of the Dog Beware of the dog (also rendered as Beware of dog) is a warning sign indicating that a dangerous dog is within. Such signs may be placed to deter burglary even if there is no dog. History Warning signs of this sort have been found in ancien ...

" by

Roald Dahl Roald Dahl (13 September 1916 – 23 November 1990) was a British novelist, short-story writer, poet, screenwriter, and wartime fighter ace of Norwegian descent. His books have sold more than 250 million copies worldwide. Dahl has be ...

. The picture stars

James Garner James Garner (born James Scott Bumgarner; April 7, 1928 – July 19, 2014) was an American actor. He played leading roles in more than 50 theatrical films, including '' The Great Escape'' (1963) with Steve McQueen; Paddy Chayefsky's ''The Ameri ...

Eva Marie Saint Eva Marie Saint (born July 4, 1924) is an American actress of film, theatre and television. In a career spanning over 70 years, she has won an Academy Award and a Primetime Emmy Award, alongside nominations for a Golden Globe Award and two Brit ...

, and

Rod Taylor Rodney Sturt Taylor (11 January 1930 – 7 January 2015) was an Australian actor. He appeared in more than 50 feature films, including ''The Time Machine'' (1960), ''One Hundred and One Dalmatians'' (1961), '' The Birds'' (1963), and ''In ...

and was directed by

George Seaton George Seaton (April 17, 1911 – July 28, 1979) was an American screenwriter, playwright, film director and producer, and theatre director. Life and career Early life Seaton was born George Edward Stenius in South Bend, Indiana, of Swedish des ...

. On June 2, 1944, a German army doctor tries to obtain vital information from an American

military intelligence Military intelligence is a military discipline that uses information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist commanders in their decisions. This aim is achieved by providing an assessment of data from a ...

officer by convincing him that it is 1950 and

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

is long over.

Plot

Having attended

General Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...

's final briefing on the upcoming

Normandy landings The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as ...

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

Major Major (commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicators ...

Jeff Pike is sent to

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

on June 1, 1944, to meet an

informant An informant (also called an informer or, as a slang term, a “snitch”) is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law-enforcement world, where informan ...

to confirm that the Nazis still expect the invasion at the

Pas de Calais The Strait of Dover or Dover Strait (french: Pas de Calais - ''Strait of Calais''), is the strait at the narrowest part of the English Channel, marking the boundary between the Channel and the North Sea, separating Great Britain from continent ...

. He is abducted and transported to Germany. Pike wakes up in what looks like a U.S. Army hospital. His hair is graying, and he needs glasses to read. He is told it is May 1950 and he is in post-war

occupied Germany Germany was already de facto occupied by the Allies from the real fall of Nazi Germany in World War II on 8 May 1945 to the establishment of the East Germany on 7 October 1949. The Allies (United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and France ...

. Psychiatrist Major Walter Gerber explains that Pike has been having episodes of amnesia since he was tortured in Lisbon. He advises Pike that his blocked memories have always resurfaced, helped along by a therapy of remembering events prior to Lisbon and then pushing forward into the blank period. Various props including U.S. Army jeeps and uniforms, baseball, and fake letters, newspaper and radio broadcasts, are used to carefully convince Pike that the year is 1950 and that he is among fellow Americans. He is assisted by a German nurse, the dispassionate Anna Hedler. Pike is taken in by the deception. As part of his "therapy," he recounts the critical details of the invasion plans, including the location and the date, June 5, to his eager listeners. When Pike notices a nearly invisible paper cut he got the day he left for Lisbon, he realizes that he has been deceived. He confirms it by tricking an "American" soldier into reflexively snapping to attention in the German manner. He confronts Anna, who admits that the date is June 2, 1944. She was recruited from a

concentration camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...

because she was a nurse and spoke English. Pike instructs Anna to tell Gerber that he was onto the plot, while he makes a feeble attempt to escape. Quickly recaptured, he states that he realized what was going on soon after waking up due to his paper cut. Gerber does not believe him. After two days of interrogation, however, Pike and Anna convince SS agent Schack, who never believed the deception would work. Schack is sure the invasion will be at the Pas de Calais. Gerber, however, sets the clock forward in Pike and Anna's room so they think it is the morning of June 5, then states that the Germans have been surprised at Normandy. Pike lets his guard down and confirms it. Gerber sends an emergency dispatch, but the weather on June 5 is so bad that Eisenhower postpones the invasion a day (which actually occurred). By midday June 5, Gerber has been discredited and Schack orders his arrest. Gerber knows that Schack will kill them to cover his own blunder when the Allies do finally land at Normandy. Gerber helps Anna and Pike escape, asking Pike to take his groundbreaking research on amnesiacs with him. When the invasion begins the next morning, he laughs at Schack when he arrives, revealing that he has taken poison and pointing out that Schack will likely be liquidated. Schack pursues the escapees on his own, too hurried to wait for troops. The couple flee to a local minister who (Pike knows) had helped downed

RAF The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

pilots escape to nearby Switzerland. The minister is away, but his housekeeper Elsa introduces them to a jovially corrupt German border guard, Sgt. Ernst Furzen. Pike and Anna bribe him with his watch and her rings to get them across the border. Furzen gives Elsa one of the rings. Schack shows up at the minister's after Furzen and the couple have left for the border — he recognizes Anna's ring on Elsa’s finger and forces her to reveal where they have gone. Schack catches up at the border, but Furzen shoots him and arranges Schack’s body to make it look as if he had been killed while trying to escape himself. Safely in Switzerland, Pike and Anna are put in separate cars. Anna cries as they part, her first display of emotion in years.

Cast

In addition,

James Doohan James Montgomery Doohan (; March 3, 1920 – July 20, 2005) was a Canadian actor, author and soldier, best known for his role as Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the television and film series ''Star Trek''. Doohan's characterization of the Scottish ...

still a year away from taking on the role of Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the television series ''

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...

''makes a brief uncredited appearance as Bishop, clerk to the Colonel MacLean character.

Production

Most of the film was shot in

Yosemite National Park Yosemite National Park ( ) is an American national park in California, surrounded on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers an ar ...

. Exterior shots were filmed at the

Wawona Hotel The Wawona Hotel is a historic hotel located within southern Yosemite National Park, in California. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987, and is on the National Register of Historic Places . History The Wawona Hotel is one of the ...

near the entrance of Yosemite National Park.

Reception

Critical

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' called the film an "ingenious thriller" and praised Garner, Saint, and Taylor for being "plausible in highly implausible roles." In the opinion of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' critic

Bosley Crowther Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. (July 13, 1905 – March 7, 1981) was an American journalist, writer, and film critic for ''The New York Times'' for 27 years. His work helped shape the careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though his ...

, "What is annoying about this picture is that the set-up for pulling off the plot is just too slick and artificial, too patly and elaborately contrived. ... Even though Mr. Seaton has done a thorough and careful job of staging this massive deception and has got his able cast to play it with reasonable assurance, it has such a synthetic look and, indeed, the idea is so theatrical that the whole thing rings curiously false." Garner wrote in his memoirs that he felt "the movie doesn't work because there's no suspense; everybody knew that in real life the D-Day invasion was a success and that we'd won the war", but he did enjoy working with Saint and George Seaton.

Background

Banner's role, which provided the comedy relief in ''36 Hours'', was the role model for his easy-going German soldier, POW camp guard Sgt. Hans Schultz, in the TV series ''

Hogan's Heroes ''Hogan's Heroes'' is an American television sitcom set in a Nazi German prisoner-of-war (POW) camp during World War II. It ran for 168 episodes (six seasons) from September 17, 1965, to April 4, 1971, on the CBS network, the longest broadcast ...

'' (1965–71). Coincidentally,

Sig Ruman Siegfried Carl Alban Rumann (October 11, 1884 – February 14, 1967), billed as Sig Ruman and Sig Rumann, was a German-American character actor known for his portrayals of pompous and often stereotypically Teutonic officials or villains in ...

played a similar POW camp guard named Sgt. Schultz in the

William Holden William Holden (born William Franklin Beedle Jr.; April 17, 1918 – November 12, 1981) was an American actor, and one of the biggest box-office draws of the 1950s. Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the film ''Stalag 17'' (1953) ...

feature film ''

Stalag 17 ''Stalag 17'' is a 1953 American war film which tells the story of a group of American airmen confined with 40,000 prisoners in a World War II German prisoner of war camp "somewhere on the Danube". Their compound holds 630 Sergeants representi ...

'' (1953). The film was remade as a 1989

TV movie A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie or TV film/movie, is a feature-length film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made for ...

, '' Breaking Point'', starring

Corbin Bernsen Corbin Dean Bernsen (born September 7, 1954) is an American actor and film director. He appeared as divorce attorney Arnold Becker on the NBC drama series '' L.A. Law'',

References

External links

* * * * *
James Garner Interview on the ''Charlie Rose Show''

James Garner Interview
at

Archive of American Television The Interviews: An Oral History of Television (formerly titled the Archive of American Television) is a project of the nonprofit Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation in North Hollywood, Los Angeles, that records interviews with notable ...

{{Roald Dahl 1965 films Films scored by Dimitri Tiomkin Films about amnesia Films based on short fiction Films based on works by Roald Dahl Films directed by George Seaton Films set in 1944 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films Operation Overlord films World War II prisoner of war films Films set in Germany Films shot in California American World War II films Films produced by William Perlberg 1960s English-language films 1960s American films