Fourteen Hours is a 1951 American drama directed by Henry Hathaway that tells the story of a New York City police officer trying to stop a despondent man from jumping to his death from the 15th floor of a hotel.
Early in the morning on St. Patrick's Day, a room service waiter at a New York City hotel is horrified to discover that the young man to whom he has just delivered breakfast is standing on the narrow ledge outside his room on the 15th floor. Charlie Dunnigan, a traffic cop on the street below, tries to convince the man to come in, to no avail. Dunnigan's officious chief dismisses him with contempt. The man on the ledge refuses to speak to psychiatrists: He wants Dunnigan, who is summoned from the street. A psychiatrist advises Dunnigan to relate to the man on a human basis. Meanwhile, a curious crowd gathers in the street below and on surrounding buildings; It continues to grow throughout the day, and into the night.
The police identify the man as Robert Cosick and locate his mother. Her overwrought, hysterical behavior upsets Cosick and seems to drive him closer to jumping. His father, whom his mother has taught him to despise, arrives but, while explaining why he has been absent, he criticizes Robert's mother, and Robert threatens to kill him.
Mrs. Cosick mentioned the name Virginia to her son. Dunnigan forces her to reveal that Virginia is Cosick's estranged fiancée. She lives in Connecticut. The police send for her. Mrs. Cosick relieves her feelings by telling her life's story to reporters. The psychiatrist tells the chief she is “a case, just like her boy.” A reporter observes: “The lady doth protest too much.”
Among the watchers, cabbies take bets on when Cosick will jump, a young couple meet and a woman who is seeking a divorce changes her mind.
Against the psychiatrist's advice, the police lower a man down to lasso Robert. People in the crowd warn him. He is furious. Dunnigan loses his temper, tells him the cop was risking his life, tells him of all the other people trying to help him—and tells him to jump. Robert apologizes. Dunnigan asks if Robert will see his father, who is “a good Joe.”
Dunnigan convinces Cosick that everyone will leave the hotel room so that he can rest and eat. He gives him the key. As Cosick begins to enter the room, a mentally ill street evangelist comes into the room, frightening Cosick back to the ledge and wrecking his trust in Dunnigan, Dunnigan calls his home to say he will be late, but does not say why.
Night has fallen, and giant spotlights are in place on the street, trained on the hotel. The Chief orders them turned away. Virginia arrives. She did not break the engagement. Cosick told her he would make her unhappy. She tried to get him to see a doctor. The psychiatrist explains the family dynamic in terms of Freudian theory, which boils down to this: Cosick's mother taught him to hate his father, which made him hate himself. He wants to love her, but feels unworthy. There is hope that he can be helped.
Virginia pleads with Cosick to come in to her, saying she loves, needs, wants him. She knows the poem he wrote her by heart. She recites it, but stops at the last lines, which he completes. They are full of despair.
Meanwhile, police place a net below him, out of his sight in the dark. In the street, TV crews train the spotlights on the evangelist, calling “Kneel and pray!”. Among the watchers, the young couple who have become separated
Dunnigan reconnects with Cosick who says he could come in for 10 good reasons—but “life stinks. It's rat race.”
Dunnigan talks about the good things in his life, and he offers to take Cosick fishing. Cosick agrees to the coming Sunday, but a teenager on the street, mocking Cosick, jumps and accidentally lights a spotlight. It blinds Cosick, and he falls from the ledge, onto the net. He is hauled into the hotel as the watchers cheer.
The psychiatrist tells Virginia and Dunnigan that Cosick, now sleeping in a hotel room behind them, wants to live,
In the hotel lobby, Dunnigan's son runs into his arms and is carried out to his mother, faintly visible through the revolving doors A Department of Sanitation truck washes the now-empty street clean as the young couple walk away, arm in arm.
Although the onscreen credits contain a statement saying that the film and characters depicted were "entirely fictional," the film was based on the suicide of John William Warde, a 26-year-old man who jumped from the 17th floor of the Gotham Hotel in Manhattan on Tuesday, July 26, 1938 after 14 hours on a ledge. The character of Charlie Dunnigan was based on Charles V. Glasco, a policeman who tried to convince Warde to return to the safety of the hotel.[1][2][3] In the film, various details about Glasco's life were fictionalized.
Pretending to be a bellhop at the hotel, Glasco entered room 1714 and tried to persuade Warde that he would be fired if Warde did not exit the ledge. Glasco spoke with Warde intermittently for 14 hours. Warde, who had made previous suicide attempts, also heard pleas from his sister. Glasco had convinced Warde to return to the hotel, but a photographer scared him as he was reentering. As a result, Warde jumped off of the ledge at 10:38p.m. Police had tried to rig a net below him, but the net could not be extended sufficiently from the hotel to block his fall. During his 14 hours on the ledge, traffic was stopped for blocks around the hotel and thousands watched the drama unfold.[2][4]
Script
Writer Joel Sayre wrote about the Warde suicide in The New Yorker in an article entitled "That Was New York: The Man on the Ledge", which was published on April 16, 1949. The story was purchased by Twentieth Century-Fox in April 1949 and the studio assigned Sol C. Siegel to produce the film.[5][6] In August 1949, Fox announced that the team of James Gow and Arnaud d'Usseau, who had written the Broadway hits Tomorrow, the World!, and Deep Are the Roots, would write the script.[7] In January 1950, Fox assigned screenwriter John Paxton to write the script, which was entirely fictional despite the real-life event.[8][3] Paxton elected against employing flashbacks to explain what had led the lead character onto the ledge.[9]
Twentieth Century-Fox changed the title in April 1950 from The Man on the Ledge to Fourteen Hours following a request from Warde's mother, who wished to distance the film from her son's story. Studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck considered changing the film's setting to another city for the same reason, but it was ultimately filmed in New York.[1]
Director
Howard Hawks refused to direct the film because of its subject matter.[10][11] He was only interested in directing if the script could be converted into a Cary Grant comedy, but Fox declined.[12]Henry Hathaway was assigned to the project in April 1950.[13]
Casting
Sayre's story was originally purchased as a vehicle for Richard Widmark, who was to play Cosick, with Robert Wagner to play the role of Danny, the young man in the couple.[1] The role of Cosick was awarded to Richard Basehart, who had achieved stage fame in The Hasty Heart and had just signed a long-term contract with Fox.[9]Paul Douglas was announced for the role of Dunnigan as early as August 1949.[14]Grace Kelly, previously known for appearing in The Father on stage, made her film debut in Fourteen Hours, besting Anne Bancroft for the role of the would-be divorcée.[5]Barbara Bel Geddes, who plays Cosick's love interest, would not appear in another film until Vertigo, seven years later.
Hathaway hired more than 300 actors to play bit parts and serve as extras.[5]
Filming
Actors and technicians at work
Filming began with a modest budget in New York City in June 1950 and lasted 50 days.[1][15][5] Much of the filming occurred on Broadway in Manhattan, including exteriors at the American Exchange National Bank building at 128 Broadway.[16][5] Basehart's stunt double on the ledge of the building was Richard Lacovara. There was a padded platform below Lacovara, but it was removed for some shots.[9] Basehart had to endure more than 300 hours on the ledge himself with little movement, despite having a sprained ankle and poison oak rashes on his legs.[5] His wife died of cancer during production of the film.[5]
In the film's original ending, Cosick falls to his death (as did John Warde in the real-life incident). However, on July 17, 1950, Fox president Spyros Skouras's 23-year-old daughter Chickie fell to her death from the roof of the Fox West Coast Building. Although authorities were unsure whether the fall was accidental, the woman had recently been treated for mental illness.[18] After Skouras watched a preview version of the film, he refused to release it with its tragic ending, so director Henry Hathaway shot a new ending in which Cosick is saved, which delayed the film's release.[5][19][20]
Release
As a sales gimmick when the film was shown in Baltimore, the studio stationed a trained nurse in the theater lobby to tend to any viewers who might be overcome by the film's suspense.[21] Gimmicks were also employed in advertisements for the film, which contained a warning for film critics to avoid divulging the ending and stated that no customers would be seated during the film's final ten minutes.[22]
In many American markets, Fourteen Hours was presented as the headliner in a double feature with My Outlaw Brother.[23]
Reception
In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther called Fourteen Hours a "superior American film" with "hard, staggering shocks" and wrote: "Fox has taken the story of that poor, unbalanced young man, as it recently was recollected in The New Yorker Magazine by Joel Sayre, and has staged it, with liberal alterations and some added atmospheric details, to put on display a hotly throbbing, brutally candid slice of metropolitan life. Fitly directed by Henry Hathaway in crisp journalistic style and played to the hilt down to its "bit" parts, it makes a show of accelerating power."[24]
Edwin Schallert of the Los Angeles Times wrote: "The cast is good, the subject unusual, and 'Fourteen Hours' is suspenseful in essence. However, it has the big disadvantage of centering around a single issue, which is bound to wear thin. .... Novelty and its documentary quality are the keynotes of the appeal of 'Fourteen Hours,' though its public perception is likely to be mixed."[23]
The New Yorker praised Basehart's performance, writing that he "succeeds in conveying the notion that he is indeed sorely beset.”[17]
Rotten Tomatoes rates the film at 63%, based on 8 reviews.[25]
Fourteen Hours was listed among the top 10 films of 1951 by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures. For his performance, Richard Basehart won the board's 1951 award for best actor.[27]
The film was nominated for the BAFTA award for best film from any source. Hathaway was nominated for the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival, and Paxton was nominated for a Writers Guild of America award for his screenplay.[28]
When the film was shown at a revival at a Los Angeles theater in 2003, only one print survived. However, the title was included in the Fox Film Noir DVD series in 2006.[5]
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↑ Crowther, Bosley (1951-03-07). "The Screen in Review: 'Fourteen Hours,' Fox Film About Man on Ledge Ready to Jump, Telling Drama at Astor". The New York Times. p.43.
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