RICHARD BASEHART STANDS PAUL DOUGLAS IN 'FOURTEEN HOURS'

Richard Basehart in FOURTEEN HOURS Year: 1951 Rating: ****1/2

The sparse poster for FOURTEEN HOURS has a rendering of Barbara Bel Geddes' screaming face looking up, surrounded by the hands of a clock, misleading in two aspects: that this intriguing film noir is a high-octane/race-against-time thriller, and that Barbara has a large role, actually only turning up in the last fifteen minutes...

Of a movie that, directed by Henry Hathaway, is more a social commentary dealing less about troubled would-be jumper Richard Basehart, standing on a hotel ledge threatening suicide, and more about affable working-man's beat cop Paul Douglas, the only person Basehart trusts to possibly talk him down while his lawman superiors (and several psychologists) are desperately meandering on the sidelines...

Barbara Bel Geddes in FOURTEEN HOURS

As even some of the otherwise parenthetical onlookers have heftier roles than poor Basehart, dealing with vague parental issues (in a revolving This Is Your Life fashion ranging from pleading mother Agnes Moorehead to guilty father Robert Keith to poetry-reading fiance Bel Geddes)... 

There's young and pretty Debra Paget who meets young and handsome Jeffrey Hunter outside another building where they'd be be otherwise working... oblivious to each other's existence save for this ongoing spectacle...

Grace Kelly in FOURTEEN HOURS

But FOURTEEN HOURS is best known for gorgeous newcomer Grace Kelly, seeking a divorce (while wearing a widow's veil) in what feels like her very own staged melodrama, going from a taxi cab into a lawyer's office/building, right across from the action-at-hand...

While cinematographer Joseph McDonald's rich B&W cinematography makes the city itself (including edgy cops, impatient fireman and bickering cabbies) a multifaceted character, ambiguously harboring newfound love and broodingly-desperate lost soul agony.

Richard Basehart in FOURTEEN HOURS

Paul Douglas in FOURTEEN HOURS

Debra Paget in FOURTEEN HOURS

Debra Paget in FOURTEEN HOURS with Jeffrey Hunter

Richard Basehart and Paul Douglas in FOURTEEN HOURS

Richard Basehart and Robert Keith in FOURTEEN HOURS

Paul Douglas in FOURTEEN HOURS

Ossie Davis in FOURTEEN HOURS

Richard Basehart in FOURTEEN HOURS

Debra Paget in FOURTEEN HOURS with Joyce Van Patten and Jeffrey Hunter

Debra Paget in FOURTEEN HOURS with Joyce Van Patten and Jeffrey Hunter

Grace Kelly in FOURTEEN HOURS with James Warren

John Randolph in FOURTEEN HOURS

Barbara Bel Geddes in FOURTEEN HOURS

Ossie Davis in FOURTEEN HOURS

Debra Paget in FOURTEEN HOURS

Richard Basehart in FOURTEEN HOURS

Grace Kelly in FOURTEEN HOURS

Richard Basehart in FOURTEEN HOURS

Richard Basehart in FOURTEEN HOURS

Howard Da Silva and Jeff Corey in FOURTEEN HOURS

Grace Kelly in FOURTEEN HOURS

Paul Douglas in FOURTEEN HOURS

Richard Basehart in FOURTEEN HOURS

Paul Douglas in FOURTEEN HOURS with Agnes Moorehead

Grace Kelly in FOURTEEN HOURS

Grace Kelly in FOURTEEN HOURS

From Henry Hathaway's FOURTEEN HOURS aka 14 HOURS

From Henry Hathaway's FOURTEEN HOURS aka 14 HOURS

From Henry Hathaway's FOURTEEN HOURS aka 14 HOURS

From Henry Hathaway's FOURTEEN HOURS aka 14 HOURS

Richard Basehart in FOURTEEN HOURS