MovieChat Forums > Fourteen Hours (1951) Discussion > The film does not live up to the 1938 ca...

The film does not live up to the 1938 case film potential

posted 15 years ago by moviegoingcat
8 replies | jump to latest

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_William_Warde

The black and white photography etc..is just beautiful. There are some good elements but the motive for the suicide is just not good enough. Unfortunately, being gay (as mentioned by one external reviewer and one reviewer here) would have been a more reasonable motive. Interesting that the film's original ending was changed.
It's a film that could have been wonderful..and isn't. The trashy psychiatry in it is just that..trash..the kind that still sells and shouldn't.

[–] 15 years ago

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[–] 15 years ago

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[–] harmedandderangerous 14 years ago

I didn't really consider it a happy ending. It wasn't the worst of possible endings, i.e., dead guy on sidewalk, but happy? Don't think so.

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] fivefids 15 years ago

Opinions are like, well, you know - everybodie's got one and they all stink except your own. I thought the movie was great, and the subject matter presented very well. I never turned away for the whole 90 + minutes. Great well made movie and a much forgotten gem of the 1950s

[–] franzkabuki 11 years ago

It´s a very cornball thing they cooked out of this one - lots of silly psychobabble, cute life lessons learned and some dopey street level romance thrown in for good measure. Baseheart in the lead is good, but I certainly don´t approve of Paul Douglas´s awkward hamminess or Bel Geddes´s wholesome handwringing. Even if some moments ring true, they really should have made something more substancial out of it all.

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

[–] Owlwise 9 years ago

Maybe they couldn't come right out & say he was gay then, but there's enough subtle indication of it for the discerning viewer, not just now but then as well.

[–] activista 8 years ago

I'll have to watch the film again---like some folks on here have said, it's definitely an underrated and well-made little thriller---but I'm thinking maybe the main character was suffering from depression, which wasn't considered an issue in that era---that could have been the case. The fact that the character said he felt like a failure at everything in life was an indication---that's usually how depression makes a person feel---as if their life and anything they do is worth absolutely nothing. What's interesting about the film is that the whole tone of the film is quietly downbeat---the feeling I got throughout it was that there was no guarantee that there would be a happy ending, no matter how many people tried their best to talk him out of it. Plus there's no lame dramatic music in the film, which helped increased the tension of the situation. It's been showing a lot lately on the MOVIES TV network channel on late Saturday night it anyone feels like catching it.