Fourteen Hours **** (1951, Paul Douglas, Richard Basehart, Barbara Bel Geddes, Debra Paget, Agnes Moorehead, Robert Keith, Howard Da Silva, Jeffrey Hunter) – Classic Movie Review 3390

Director Henry Hathaway’s ultra-tense, meticulously crafted 1951 film noir thriller is an absolutely excellent one. The exteriors are imaginatively shot on location on the streets of New York City. The building used was demolished in 1967 and replaced by the 52-story tower 140 Broadway.

Producer Sol C Siegel got permission from the New York Police Department to rope off a large section of downtown New York as one extensive set. But the dialogue scenes were shot on a copy of the building on Fox studio sets in Hollywood.

Richard Basehart plays Robert Cosick, a despairing man standing on the 17th-floor ledge of a Manhattan high-rise building and threatening suicide by chucking himself off from the edge of the ledge. Cosick is suicidal because he thinks his parents do not love him and that he can’t make his girlfriend happy.

Paul Douglas also stars as Police Officer Charlie Dunnigan, a nice traffic cop who comes along in the nick of time to try to talk Cosick down after everyone else has failed.

It is not easy to portray goodness, but Douglas’s brisk and robust performance is a winner. Hathaway’s brilliantly tense and suspenseful direction keeps the movie bristling and crackling for its whole hour and a half. And cinematographer Joe MacDonald’s black and white images ere striking.

It also stars Agnes Moorehead as Mrs Cosick, Robert Keith as Mr Cosick, Howard da Silva as Deputy Police Chief Moskar and Jeffrey Hunter as Danny Klempner.

John Paxton’s screenplay is based on Joel Sayre’s story The Man on the Ledge, which in turn derives from a real-life incident of July 26 1938 with John W Warde (aged 26) in New York City. But the movie is given a fictional changed ending. Warde’s mother requested that Fox changed the original title The Man on the Ledge so it would not be as closely identified with her son.

A face in the crowd is that of young tyro actress Grace Kelly (aged 22) in her film debut, playing Mrs Louise Ann Fuller. It is also the film debut of Joyce Van Patten, playing Barbara. It is the second film of John Randolph (playing a fireman), who was blacklisted for 15 years, and made no more films till Seconds in 1966. Howard Da Silva, Martin Gabel, Jeff Corey and Leif Erickson were also in trouble with the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Erickson named names and was cleared.

Also in the cast are Martin Gabel, Jeff Corey, Frank Faylen, James Millican, Donald Randolph, Willard Waterman, Kenneth Harvey, Ossie Davis, Leif Erickson, Russell Hicks, Harvey Lembeck, James Warren, George Baxter, Barry Brooks, Bernard Burke, John Cassavetes, Brad Dexter, Gordon Gebert, Sandra Gould, Jerry Hausner, Brian Keith, Rusty Lane, George MacQuarrie, Rory Mallinson, Renny McEvoy, John McGuire, Bill McLean, Shepard Menken, Ann Morrison, Forbes Murray, Howard Negley, Frank Nelson, George Offerman, Robert Pitkin, Lou Polan, George Putnam, Suzanne Ridgeway, Dan Riss, Janice Rule, Henry Slate, Alix Talton, William Welsh Jr, Mervin Williams and Richard Beymer.

Except for Alfred Newman’s brief scoring in the main titles and at the end, the film has no music.

The film was shelved for six months because the daughter of Fox executive Spyros Skouras leaped to her death the same day the film was previewed. Skouras made some changes to the film’s storyline.

Protected by a canvas life belt hidden under his clothes, connected to a lifeline, Richard Lacovara doubled for Basehart in long shots on the ledge, enlarged to minimise risk of falling. Basehart still had to endure more than 300 hours’ standing on the ledge with little movement during the 50-day New York shoot.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3390

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