36 Hours (1964)

Information

justwannaboogie
@Siskoid The Germans are subtitled, the version you watched must have been incorrect. 2 years 2 months ago
Siskoid
In 36 Hours, Nazis try to make Allied spy James Gardner believe amnesia wiped the last six years of his life to get him to reveal everything he knows about D-Day. A well-constructed period thriller that possibly owes more to the anxieties of 1965 than those of the 40s, echoing the Soviet's training camps/fake American suburbs and the fear of brainwashing. In fact, I've seen plenty of Mission: Impossible episodes that aped the bad guys' complicated scheme. The film shows its research (or the book's) with plenty of references to what the intelligence services were keeping an eye on at the time, often as throwaways. Not subtitling the Germans adds verisimilitude, but some conversations go on long enough for us to think we missed something important. Happily, there's real depth to the characters, with our hero able to be very ruthless indeed, while the Germans are allowed a full range of attitudes and motivations; only one is a straight villain, and even he has an interesting perspective. Bonus points for using some character actors pulled from the era's television, like James Doohan, Alan Napier and John Banner. I do think the third act is too long, like it doesn't know what its climax actually is, but those sequences also have things to recommend so what am I griping about? 4 years 4 months ago