FOURTEEN HOURS is a little too low-key for its own good. You want to like it the way you embrace such films as Kazan's PANIC IN THE STREETS or Preminger's BABY FACE, but it's just too boring. Richard Basehart is a distraught man perched on the fifteenth floor ledge of a NYC hotel. Paul Douglas is the flatfoot trying to talk him down. Director Henry Hathaway kicks things off quickly, but the movie drags by the mid-point when Basehart's divorced parents show up. Robert Keith is his ne'er do well father and Agnes Moorehead is his headline grabbing mother. They both overact and do little to help the movie along. Basehart is good and so is Douglas, although their dialog is pretty silly. Martin Gabel plays a psychiatrist in such a grave manner that his psychobabble, circa 1951, comes off as fairly goofy. It hasn't aged well! Barbara Bel Geddes plays Basehart's ex-girlfriend and proves in one scene that she's really incapable of giving a bad performance. Howard Da Silva proves once again that his IS capable of being bad as Douglas's crusty yet benign superior. A number of subplots crop up among the bystanders. Grace Kelly is pretty striking as a soon to be divorcée. Look fast for the likes of Ossie Davis and Joyce Van Patten.
Review of Fourteen Hours
