36 heures avant le débarquement

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. The best kept secret of World War II was the exact date and location of the cross channel invasion into western Europe. 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. But the Nazis have been watching him too. 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 set up an elaborate facade of a US. Army Hospital in an occupied Germany in 1950 and when Garner wakes up, they're going to convince him that the war is over and the allies have been victorious. 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. Skeptical about the plan, but willing to go along with it if it succeeds is SS major Werner Peters who played a lovely variety of Nazis in the Sixties.

Of course when Garner does realize this is all a charade it becomes quite a three cornered cat and mouse game between him and Taylor and Peters. The SS has a tried and true motto, they're skeptical in general about information not obtained under torture.

36 Hours is a finely executed espionage and escape drama. The cast is at they're combined very best. But as good as the ones I've mentioned, there is one stunningly droll performance by John Banner, soon to become Sergeant Schultz on Hogan's Heroes. He plays a German version of Dad's Army and he's one of the older generation that hasn't bought into the Nazi way. He's the best in this fine film.

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.

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. A fake military hospital was made to convince him that this is so, complete with fake newspapers, reporting on the activities of President Wallace, with references to the retired FDR vacationing happily in Warm Springs. The idea behind it all is to get the major to spill the beans about where the Allied troops were going to land in France (indeed, the major does know this, and the Germans know he knows). In this respect the movie is based pretty much on fact. The Germans knew that there was going to be an Allied invasion of the Continent, most likely in France,--but where? Most of the German high command expected the Allies to land in Calais, but they weren't sure. Everything hinged on outfoxing the Allies, so that the Germans would be prepared for what they knew was going to be a massive invasion. 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. The race is on to find out the truth, only at first the major doesn't know it. 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. Eva Marie Saint is her usual dignified self as the "love interest", though I found her character, once the truth is revealed about her background, hard to believe. Taylor's doctor is much more interesting, but alas gets less screen time. His character is ambiguous; a German-American who has returned to his homeland, where he has managed to get funds to do research, and who is slowly but surely becoming disenchanted with his Nazi superiors. The movie works like a charm for its first roughly two thirds and then falls off somewhat near the end, for reasons I won't give away. Overall, though, this is a very satisfying and somewhat neglected film. Though it doesn't appear to be made on a big budget it's very good in recreating the wartime mood, and in this respect wonderfully retro. 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.

This is one of my favorite WW II movies. It's tag line was GIVE ME THIRTY SIX HOURS and I'll give you a traitor. D-Day is upon the Germans defending The Atlantic Wall. The US is about to launch a colossal invasion force on the European continent, but where will the blow strike? 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. The psychologist an American born German serving in the Wehrmacht is to persuade captured Pike that Pike has been suffering from amnesia for five years and has now recovered his long term memory at the cost of losing his recent memory. The setting is idyllic and the gilted cage is cozy, replete with a faux-wife.

Will Pike see through the German plot? A must see unusually well done spy story.

It wasn't a blockbuster, but is haunting. I still remember the first time I saw it, and remember it every time I ... well, I don't want to reveal any plot points. But it is probably one of the films that triggered my love of mysteries.