GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Aaron Igay I've always seemed to enjoy films that were about a single event in real time. Archival time is obviously necessary for any story that spans more than a few hours, but real time films just seem to be inherently engaging. OK so the film isn't 14 hours long, but it does all take place in one spot on one day. This noir about a jumper on the side of a skyscraper in NYC is packed with great (if slightly cliché) characters, including the on-screen debut of Grace Kelly. Unfortunately many of the actors in this film were blacklisted during the HUAC witch hunt a few years later and would not be seen in films again. Uniquely, there is no score or music in the film outside of the titles which further adds to the realism.

seymourblack-1 "Fourteen Hours" is a low budget offering with a simple plot and a relatively short running time but it's also an incredibly gripping drama about a disturbed young man who threatens to commit suicide by jumping off a skyscraper window ledge.The story's based on the real life incident which involved John Wilson Warde who on 26 July 1938 leapt to his death from one of the highest window ledges of the Hotel Gotham in New York City. Director Henry Hathaway filmed the action in a style which was very realistic and made good use of some strikingly effective camera angles. His approach was also one which avoided any tasteless sensationalism or sentimentality.Shortly after delivering breakfast to a hotel guest, a service waiter suddenly realises that the young man has stepped out onto the ledge outside of his room and is threatening to jump. The waiter reports what's happened to the hotel manager and at the same time, traffic cop Charlie Dunnigan (Paul Douglas) who is working on the street below, alerts his colleagues to what's going on before swiftly going up to the would be jumper's room. There Dunnigan poses as another hotel guest and starts a conversation with the troubled Robert Cosick (Richard Basehart) who despite Dunnigan's encouragement, refuses to step back into his room.Soon, the police, newspaper reporters and a couple of psychiatrists arrive, Dunnigan is ordered back to his traffic duty and outside a large crowd gathers and radio and television crews quickly set up their equipment. The psychiatrists discover that Robert is unwilling to speak to anyone but Dunnigan and so he's duly called back to the scene by Deputy Chief Moksar (Howard Da Silva).The police locate the young man's divorced parents but Robert only becomes more upset by the arrival of the hysterical Mrs Cosick (Agnes Moorehead) and also fails to communicate properly with his father (Robert Keith) from whom he's been estranged for many years. Next, Robert's ex-fiancée Virginia (Barbara Bel Geddes) is brought to the hotel but her intervention ultimately proves to be just as ineffective as that of his parents. Robert's predicament is eventually resolved but in a most unexpected way.In "Fourteen Hours", the despair of a solitary man on the ledge provides a stark contrast to the frantic activity of the large number of people in his hotel room. Similarly, this man's lonely and desperate life or death situation is seen as insignificant in a large city where the onlookers who watch him simply regard the whole incident as a gross inconvenience and even take bets on what time he'll jump.The story's subplots which involve a couple meeting in the crowd and falling in love and a woman changing her mind about proceeding with her planned divorce also emphasise how the lives of the city and its people drive relentlessly on because one person's crisis is totally insignificant in this kind of environment.Robert Cosick is a man with a history of mental problems and his instability at the time of his crisis on the ledge is explained as being caused by the inadequacies of his parents and the way he was treated by them.This movie has a cast who turn in some good performances but it's the contributions of Basehart and Douglas which really stand out. Basehart looks genuinely tormented and anxious and it's understandable that the strongest bond that he forms is with a man who has the type of qualities which would normally be associated with those of a conventional good natured father figure. Douglas is also excellent as the kindly and modest man who puts his sound personal qualities to good use in what for him is a very challenging situation.

evanston_dad First things first: "Fourteen Hours" is NOT a film noir. I don't know why numerous resources about film noir (including IMDb) include it.It does have many of the characteristics of those police procedural docu-dramas from the late 40s and early 50s that so many noirs also shared, so maybe that accounts for it. This film, based on a true story, stars Richard Basehart as a man who threatens to jump from a city skyscraper. Paul Douglas is the cop who works overtime to prevent him from doing so. Over the course of the film, a whole bunch of psychobabble involving the man's childhood emerges to explain his actions, and late in the film, his one-time fiancée (played by Barbara Bel Geddes) shows up to shed even more light on the matter.This is serviceable if not overly remarkable film-making. It will probably engage your interest, but I doubt it will linger in your mind. I will forever remember this film as the one I was watching when my wife went into labor with our son.The movie received a rather random Academy Award nomination for its black and white art direction.Grade: B

dougdoepke A movie like this presents a real challenge. After all, the producers have got what amounts to a single set, two main characters, and 90 minutes to fill. So to please ticket-buying customers, they better come up with something good. Fortunately, they do. The plot is a literal cliffhanger or maybe skyscraper is more apt--- will a suicidal young Richard Basehart jump from his 20th floor ledge or not. He certainly has audiences on both sides of the screen glued to the suspense, at the same time city police try to convince him it's better to be an unhappy bi-ped than a bird without wings. Good thing that the producers also come up with one of the best young actors of the time--- Basehart, who acts just foggy enough to teeter on a ledge and play Hamlet. Then there's that genial roughneck Paul Douglas as the cop who tries to persuade him that it's really better to be than not-to-be.Note how ace studio director Hathaway keeps the hotel room bustling so that the static ledge shots don't become boring. Also, note how TV is competing with radio coverage at a time when the tube was just beginning to take off. Then there're the subplots that take the pulse of the city. The cynical cabbies do offer comic relief. But, frankly, I could have done without the young lovers, Paget and Hunter, who appear better suited to a Pepsi commercial, or the Grace Kelly soap opera that comes across as trite and unimaginative. But I guess the producers figured a variety of relief was needed. Also, I can see from the close-ups why Hitchcock liked Barbara Bel Geddes (Virginia). She pulls off the really difficult task of being sweetly wholesome without drowning the part in sugar.All in all, there's enough skill and craftsmanship in this TCF production to keep even digital- age audiences on the edge of their seat.