Fourteen Hours

In 1951 renowned director Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole hit theaters and tanked in a big way. Watching it now almost 60 years later, it's easy to see why. It's ahead of its time in dealing with criticisms of media, mob mentality, even society in general. Basically, 'Ace' doesn't pull any punches. It tells a story and doesn't care how you feel about it. Released the same year as 'Ace,' Fourteen Hours deals with a similar subject but never rises to the same level as Wilder's forgotten classic.

Combining a documentary-like filming style and an impressive list of character actors given a chance to step into the limelight, 'Fourteen' tries to do a lot of things. The premise -- a man standing on a ledge on the 15th floor of a New York hotel and ready to jump -- doesn't seem to bode well for a feature-length film. But that's for later because I've got some complaints about that man out on the ledge.

Delivering breakfast to a 15th floor room at the Rodney Hotel, a waiter (Frank Faylen) loses track of where the hotel guest is in the room. Looking around, he notices the curtains blowing all over the room. Sticking his head out the window, he sees the guest (Richard Basehart) standing on the window ledge. Far down below on the empty New York streets, traffic cop Charlie Dunnigan (Paul Douglas) spots the man on the ledge and races inside the hotel to try and help. So starts a day-long media event as Dunnigan and seemingly all of the NY police force try to talk the man down, first trying to find the man's name and then looking into his background.

That sort of storyline opens the door for a long list of possibilities. At the heart of the movie is Basehart's man on the ledge and Douglas' flat-footed traffic cop, the only man Basehart will talk to. But feet away in the hotel room and the adjacent hallway is a throng of people, cops, reporters, hanger-ons trying to help or hurt the situation. Far below on the streets, NY turns into gridlock as crowds gather to see whether the man will jump to his death. A group of cab drivers place bets on which hour he will jump while waiting for the traffic to clear. Additions like that reminded me of 'Ace' in its cynicism of human nature, but 'Fourteen' balances that out with a love story between two strangers, Jeffrey Hunter's Danny and Debra Paget's Ruth.

As the man on the ledge and the average Joe cop trying to talk him down, Basehart and Douglas dominate the screentime, but that doesn't mean a long list of varying characters is left behind. Agnes Morehead and Robert Keith play the man's overbearing mother and the father who abandoned his family, Howard Da Silva as police commander Moskar who leads the rescue effort from the hotel room, Martin Gabel as Dr. Strauss, a psychiatrist trying to figure out Basehart's background and mental make-up, Grace Kelly in her screen debut as a divorcee watching the proceedings from a nearby building, and Ossie Davis and Harvey Lembeck as two on-looking cab drivers looking to make a buck.

The premise -- as interesting and tense as it is -- has some holes that probably needed to be dealt with. First, the biggie, Basehart gets out on that ledge early in the morning and stands there for (like the title says) 14 hours. But once Douglas' cop shows up, the man starts asking for cigarettes, glasses of water and coffee. Whenever any effort is made to bring him down from the ledge, he starts freaking out, screaming 'Get back or I'll jump!' Basically, that's my problem with the character who, credit going to Basehart, comes across a whiny, shrill, not mentally all there individual. I'm not sure what it says about me, but after the fifth or sixth freakout at seeing a cop or net, I was rooting for him to jump. And on the reality meter, he's up there 14 hours and drinking water and coffee. The dude's gonna have to use the bathroom at some point. Come on now.

My complaints aren't enough to not recommend this movie, just enough to detract overall from a worthy story and bring down an above average movie to an average flick. Great cast, some very cool uses of New York as the story's backdrop, and an interesting premise that for the most part delivers. Look for 14 Hours, but also track down Wilder's Ace in the Hole, a forgotten classic from a great director.

Fourteen Hours <---- typically overdramatic 1950s trailer (1951): **/****