36 Hours
Tags: brainwashing, psychological

Plot synopsis:
An introductory WWII newsreel sets the stage. D-Day is fast approaching, but the exact date and designated invasion beaches are closely-held secrets. The British Isles are bulging with troops, ships and equipment.The story begins in London on May 31, 1944. An American army major, Jefferson Pike (James Garner), enters Allied Forces HQ to discuss the ongoing invasion preparations. The top brass aren't convinced that Allied deception efforts have fooled the Germans. While poring over a wall map of German troop dispositions in France, Pike inadvertently slides his finger along the edge of the map, incurring a nasty paper cut.To hedge their bets, the High Command sends Pike to Lisbon to meet with a German double agent and see what he knows. Pike expresses concerns that if captured and tortured, he might reveal exact invasion details. His superiors feel that the risk is justified. As Pike flies out of London in civilian garb, a German spy sees him boarding the plane and reports it to her handlers. Another German spy enters his vacant hotel room and gathers personal items, including photos, letters and hair samples from his brush.In Lisbon, Pike goes to a nightclub to meet his contact but quickly realizes that his drink has been drugged shortly before he passes out. He is soon in German hands, placed in a coffin as a deceased German embassy clerk, and flown to Germany. An American-born German army major, Walter Gerber (Rod Taylor), is a military psychiatrist in charge of an elaborate deception scheme designed to coax the invasion secrets from Major Pike. An entire "American" military convalescent center has been set up deep in a German forest to fool Pike. Major Gerber is given 36 hours to extract the invasion plans from Pike. After that, Pike will be handed over to the SS to gain the information through their usual means. Gerber also understands that the consequences of failure will be catastrophic for his own future.When a groggy, disoriented Pike finally awakens, he is relieved to find himself in Allied hands. Looking in a mirror for the first time, he is shocked to find his dark hair streaked with gray, his skin aged, and his vision blurry. His every move is observed through a two-way mirror. Piece by piece, Pike is sold the idea that it is now May 1950, the war is long over, and he is convalescing at an American military hospital in occupied Germany. Both Major Gerber and pretty nurse Anna Hedler (Eva Marie Saint) are leading actors in the ruse. Pike's room contains familiar photos and Anna is able to provide accurate details about his parents. Rigorous measures are taken to ensure that Pike is surrounded by dozens of role players who are fluent in American speech dialects and customs. No one is allowed to speak German, even out of Pike's hearing. Pike is told that he is suffering from severe amnesia, a side effect from the severe "beating" he supposedly absorbed after the Lisbon incident six years earlier. According to the cover story, Pike was found wandering alone in Lisbon and sent back to the US to recuperate, but continual regressions over the years dictated that he be sent to Major Gerber in Germany for experimental psychological therapy.His nurse tells him that she and Pike have been married for two months, but due to another regression he doesn't remember her. In an unguarded moment with Anna, Pike asks about the war's closing months and mentions something about the invasion sites having been in Normandy. She tries to conceal her shock and reports the sensational disclosure to Major Gerber, who then manages to skillfully extract the most important invasion details from the trusting Pike. The race is on. The date is now June 2.After the session with Gerber, Pike is absent-mindedly rubbing his fingers together when he suddenly irritates the painful paper cut incurred in London two days earlier. Gradually recalling the injury, confusion registers on his face. With his suspicions aroused, Pike takes steps to confirm his worst fears and then violently confronts Anna, who admits to the elaborate plot. She explains that she went along with the ruse in order to buy her way out of a concentration camp. Out of hatred for her captors, she agrees to help Pike. He tells her to run out of his room screaming that he has escaped and that he has known about the plot from the outset. Pike slips out the back way, knowing that he will be caught. Now the Germans must determine whether Pike was telling the truth about Normandy or trying to deceive them.A disappointed Major Gerber asks how and when Pike figured out the scheme and Pike tells him about the paper cut. Gerber explains that Pike was carefully examined for injuries when he arrived, but the cut was obviously concealed in a skin crease. Gerber still thinks Normandy was a truthful answer, but he knows no one will believe him. The SS indeed discounts Pike's accurate story and allows the bulk of the German forces to remain idled near Calais. Gerber explains regretfully that Pike will now be handed over to the tender mercies of the SS.Hating the SS and realizing that he will probably be executed for his costly failure, Major Gerber settles on a daring plan to have his pioneering research on psychological combat trauma live on. He gives his research papers to Pike and Anna, advises them how to get across the border, and helps them escape from their locked room.The race for freedom is now on, with a zealous SS officer trying to capture the pair before they can escape over the Swiss border.

Review: 36 Hours is a beautifully made thriller about an American major captured by the Germans in World War II not long before D-Day, and who is drugged and made to age artificially, so that when he wakes up he thinks five years have passed, that the war is over, and that the Americans won.
But back to the movie: a friendly-seeming doctor, excellently played by Rod Taylor, explains to his "patient", quite convincingly, how he came to "lose" five years of his life.
He believes what the doctor tells him; but the doctor has his problems, too, which is how to tactfully get the information he needs from his "patient" (actually his captive) without the major knowing it.James Garner is fine as the major; so good in fact as to make me wonder why his movie career wasn't more successful.
It probably seemed a bit old-fashioned when it came out, when James Bond was all the rage; but time has been kind to it, and it plays better today than many of the more hip, sexy movies of the Austin Powers sixties..
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.
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.
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).
The best scenes for me were the dialogues between James Garner and Rod Taylor, they'd make a great film on their own.
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).
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.
To be sure German agents kidnap American Major Pike (James Garner) from neutral Spain and send him deep into Germany where they've set up a Ptomekin village, a US post in an occupied Germany sometime five years hence.
36 Hours is a film that finds James Garner as a major attached to Allied intelligence and to the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force in London.
As things get closer to D-Day, the Allies want to make sure the Nazis stay fooled right up to the end.Which is why Garner goes to Lisbon to check out a source at the German Embassy in neutral Portugal.
While in Lisbon, he meets up with a Mr. Michael Finn at a hotel bar rendezvous which renders him unconscious and Garner is secretly flown to Germany.The nice things about 36 Hours is that some of the facts about the landings at Normandy are woven very nicely into an intricate espionage story.
Incidentally some of the same facts that were used in another Garner classic film, The Americanization of Emily, but in a far more comic vein.What the Nazis have decided to do is trick Garner into revealing the plans for the imminent invasion.
They've even cooked up a love interest in Eva Marie Saint who is formerly a concentration camp inmate and like all of them will do anything to avoid going back.All this is the brainchild of German doctor Rod Taylor who is convinced that without the usual Nazi like methods Garner can be tricked into revealing vital information.
There are hints here of the landmark television series "The Prisoner" at first, too (that series launched in 1967 but McGoohan, the central planner of "The Prisoner," outlined it in a 1965 interview!).At first you think this will be another war film, with James Garner playing a half-convincing top military adviser and courier (he's too young, too good looking, and far too casual).
Really great in her role was Eva Marie Saint, one year before she and James Garner would team up again for "Grand Prix".
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/.
". As a matter of record, there were hundreds of soldiers who returned to the States with little memory of what their role was in World War Two. Here in this story called " 36 Hours " an Intelligent's Officer (James Garner) Major Jefferson F.
Pike is given the latest secret plans for the Invasion of Normandy and is thereafter sent to Lisbon Portugal to ascertain if the German High Command are chasing the false ruses put out by the Allies.
The Germans' have a highly educated Phychiatrist, Major Walter Gerber (Rod Taylor) who is going to try and convince the Major, that not only is World War II is over, but it is now six years in the future.
With the help of Anna Hedler (Eva Marie Saint) heading a highly trained staff of English speaking Germans and a secret, isolated military compound they hope to trick him into revealing the Allies invasion plans.
George Seaton directed this psychological WWII thriller that stars James Garner as Army Major Jefferson Pike, who is knocked-out and kidnapped by the Germans in an effort to tell them about the forthcoming Allied D-Day invasion plans.
Rod Taylor plays German Major Walter Gerber, who concocts an elaborate scheme to fool Pike into believing that the war is now over, with an Allied victory, but that he suffers from amnesia and to recover his memory, must remember the events of the day he last remembers - the day he was taken, and Gerber has only 36 hours to succeed, before the Gestapo takes over...
Ostensibly, it was produced to dramatically demonstrate that any information (other than name, rank and serial number) provided by captured American soldiers could potentially cost American lives.In the film 36 Hours (1965), Major Pike (James Garner)is a captured American serviceman.
He is the object of a clever German ruse devised by Major Gerber(Rod Taylor)to get him to reveal inside information about the Allied plans for the D-Day invasion.
Speaking of Hitchcock, Eva Marie Saint played in North by North West (1959) and gives a performance as convincing in 36 Hours.I recommend this film for it plot that captures the imagination, the excellent performances by all actors, and a quality score.Watch for John Banner's portrayal of a German sergeant.
Pike (James Garner), who has accurate and detailed information of this invasion, is drugged and kidnapped by the Germans about five days prior to this invasion.Pike then wakes up in a bogus, but convincing, U.S. military hospital created by the Germans in an attempt trick Pike into thinking it's six years later, that war is over and that he has amnesia hoping that he'll reveal the information he has about the pending invasion.
U.S. Army Medical Doctor, Major Walt Gerber, MD (Rod Taylor), who is assigned to Pike's case, is actually a German military officer who speaks perfect English with no accent because Gerber spent the first sixteen years of his life being raised in the United States.
The German SS has given Gerber 36 hours to get the information from Pike, but due to a communications delay, Gerber now only has about 24 hours to get this information before the German SS takes over the interrogation.Through a series of sessions with Gerber, Pike is convinced of his amnesia and gradually reveals information of the pending D-Day invasion until a very minor, overlooked, detail emerges that blows this whole deception.Being shot in black and white seems to add to the effectiveness of this movie..
Our sympathy with the heroine Anna is developed by learning more about her, and similarly the character of the German doctor Walter Gerber becomes more interesting as his tense relationship with the Nazi side deteriorates.It truly ain't over til it's over in this film with the humour introduced by the unpredictable John Banner character.
James Garner plays Major Pike, who has detailed info on the attack.
Eva Marie Saint plays his nurse, Rod Taylor his doctor and Werner Peters a Nazi.
(My assessments of acting, special effects, etcetera, often revolve around the question 'did they make the story believable?' Good special effects helped me suspend my belief systems when I watched any of the films of the 'Star Wars' or 'Harry Potter' franchises, but that's another argument.) One thing caught my attention, though.
I already love the 3 main characters: James Garner, Eve Marie Saint, and Rod Taylor.
This film was the best one for Garner that he was the shadow and spirit of Clarck gable , this role was the second after (The great escape)and he gained from the previous film an experience for this role and he used perfectly his popularity to be a successful actor in Hollywood and his voice was a symbol of leader and Jan premier at once beside his eastern shape which help him to be varietal in his choice of roles.Eva Marie saint was a beautiful dream girl in this film to re pure the weather of terrible in this story and she was the symbol of love in the time of war to retry the pure and good of this world and she was a flower around exp losers.rod Taylor succeeded in this role that helped garner to escape and suicided because of attacking the law of his country Germany.At the end i entertained from this film because of varietal points i remembered it in the beginning of my comment.
One of the best of the films of James Garnerof that era , albeit the black and white white tones do make this much more realistic, since a colorized version might definitely take away a part of the dramatic impact of this great film, with the scenes that allegedly take place at the US military hospital in Germany looking rather realistic, but those scenes were probably shot somewhere in the western areas of the US, but no matter, the suspense remains, and there were a number of incidents that have been recalled by individuals during World war Two in which Nazi espionage agents and intelligence agents did attempt to "brain wash" American military personnel to try to get the exact location of the French coast invasion,with the Nazi high command being convinced that the raid would be at the Pas De Calais, as Normandy was considered to be only a diversionary action..
What it lacks in the 'Action' scenes of a standard War picture, it more than makes up for with the creative use of tension, mystery and brainpower.SPORTING AN ENVIABLE cast with James Garner, Eva Marie Saint and Rod Taylor in the top billing positions, it had good box office appeal to start with.
The story of a US major kidnapped in May, 1944, by the Germans who try to trick him into believing that he has amnesia, the war is over, the Allies won, and -- by the way, where and when will the D-Day landings take place?
The Germans have set up a fake hospital staffed by phony Americans and they rush the unconscious Major Pike (James Garner) there.
He is attended by Rod Taylor, a real doctor but wearing an American uniform, and Eva Marie Saint, his fake nurse and wife, who has been chosen for the deception from among the inmates of Ravensbruck.The Germans have been very thorough.
As it is, Act III should have been dropped and more time spent with Garner in the hospital, getting to know the other "patients", becoming friendly with Taylor, developing some affection for Saint.
Deprive a man of sleep and you make him fuzzy, confuse his allegiances." It makes the SS sound like St. Francis of Assisi, compared to the "enhanced interrogation" of today.Rod Taylor's character is supposed to have been born in America and spent his first sixteen years there before coming to Germany, but he wouldn't fool me for a minute because he uses the expression "different to", a British locution, rather than the American "different from" or "different than".
James Garner is one of the men who knows about the plans for the Normandy Invasion in 1944.The movie starts with him waking up in an allied hospital LONG after the D-Day invasion.
He was apparently in an accident and the kind doctors and nurses are happy to see he is finally awake and regaining his memory.However, through the course of the film, little oddities conspire to convince Garner that the war MIGHT NOT be over and that the hospital and the accident are all really part of an elaborate ruse!
Well, a year before "Mission" even premiered, "36 Hours" presented a story remarkably similar to what the producers of "Mission" did week after week: if someone was placed in an isolated situation and given only enough information to make the setting appear real -- here, to convince American Major Jefferson Pike, played by James Garner, that the war has been over for years -- then that person might genuinely believe the "false front," and might also come to believe that revealing military secrets (such as the date and location of the D-Day invasion) is harmless.
It all sounds implausible, yet by coloring his hair as if had gone slightly gray, fuzzing his vision enough so that he seems to need reading glasses, and completing the background with just enough personal articles stolen from his London flat, the illusion is strong enough to make him believe the story, at least at the outset.A surprise is Australian Rod Taylor as an American-born German psychiatrist who is the primary confidante for Garner's character, as well as Eva Marie Saint as a nurse who is a different kind of confidante -- with a strong incentive to make the deception work.
Of course, with the then-major star that Taylor was in the role, it's foregone that he won't be as unsympathetic as some of the other Nazi characters.The movie is also spiced with a thoroughly-believable Celia Lovsky as a sympathetic local villager -- and John Banner, best known for playing Sgt. Schultz on "Hogan's Heroes" as a real hero here!
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.
A tantalizing story has been fashioned out of the idea that the American Major Pike might be tricked into spilling the beans about the Allied invasion of France during World War II, if he is made to believe that, because of amnesia, he is unaware of the war's outcome.Once the plot gets into high gear, it gives the viewer much satisfaction mainly because of the excellent performances of James Garner, Eva Marie Saint and Rod Taylor.
They are separated in the film's final scene but it is strongly hinted that she has fallen in love with him and perhaps the same is true of him.The best character in the film, however, is Major Walter Gerber, a brilliant American-born German doctor who came up with the amnesia hoax.
Very good film with Jim Garner, Eva Marie Saint and Rod Taylor in basically a cat and mouse game.Garner is captured by the Nazis and is made to believe that he is an amnesia victim who has had his memory restored in the year 1950.The movie does lose some of it potency once Garner discovers the ruse.The film then becomes one of the Nazis not believing Garner when he had send that the allied invasion would occur at Normandy.
Wouldn't you want to call someone if you just found out you were six years older, the war was over, and how was so and so back home?The Nazi's couldn't anticipate who you would call, and what questions would be asked.James Bond movies were just hitting the theaters, at the time this film was made.
But 36 hours would have you believe that its story line was plausible, at least until Garner discovered he was being duped It took too long, the character played by Eva Maria Saint was even less credible than Rod Cameron's character.
James Garner plays an intelligent officer who is captured in the eve of the D-Day invasion.
The Germans try to trick him into think six years had passed and that the war was over in order to get him to reveal what he knows.Off beat spy yarn is a clever idea but never quite gels.