MovieChat Forums > 36 Hours (1965) Discussion > Possible to fool someone into thinking h...

Possible to fool someone into thinking he/she is older?

posted 16 years ago by brucedgo
20 replies | jump to latest

It was a nice touch to induce the vision problem. But I don't know if artificially induced blurry vision is correctable, let alone with the same amount of correction for several hours.

The amnesia story they used was good, too. Don't know if it was factual, but most people wouldn't know enough to question it. By the way, don't you think Pike bought the whole thing awfully quickly and easily? He seemed awfully relaxed for someone who just lost six years.

What if they had found the paper cut, what could they have done about it?

To really fool someone, you have to make them feel older as well as look older I think. I suspect something could be done along those lines. Some drug could induce fatigue probably. Maybe some muscle manipulation could produce soreness or aches.

If you had more time with the body (unconcious) you could injure the skin enough to leave a new scar after healing. That might take several weeks of course, and wouldn't be applicable to the movie situation (a few days before invasion).

Other thoughts?

"The more you drive, the less intelligent you are"
-- Repo Man

[–] schappe1 15 years ago

"What if they had found the paper cut, what could they have done about it?"

Taylor says their dermatologists went over him head to toe. Could thay have gotten a paper cut to heal in the time aloted?

[–] brucedgo 15 years ago

I didn't think of this before, but I think I know a fool proof way to hide it...

Give him a worse injury in the same place that covers it up!

What do you think?

"The more you drive, the less intelligent you are"
-- Repo Man

[–] exeal 15 years ago

brucedgo said:
I didn't think of this before, but I think I know a fool proof way to hide it...
Give him a worse injury in the same place that covers it up!
What do you think?
================================

I just watched it today and was thinking the same thing about the paper cut. He was a smoker so something like a cigarette burn would cover it.

[–] nvasapper 15 years ago

That's ingenious! Very, very nice, indeed. Like a cigarette burn that the Germans could say he accidently did to himself. I'm very impressed with the intelligence of your response!

[–] Foster (876) 7 months ago

Hmmm Burnt himself with a cigarette 5 years before ???

[–] WardenGordonBorden 15 years ago

To really fool someone, you have to make them feel older

Not in this case, I'd say. Six years older is not so much older that you would 'feel' older at his age, but the reading glasses was dead on.

I doubt that this scheme could actually be accomplished for the very reason it did fail. But what a fascinating story idea and very enjoyable picture. Great cast with James Garner, Eva Marie Saint, Rod Taylor & John Banner. Unfortunately, the last third of the movie keeps it off my all-time greats list.

Hi, Bob.

[–] canuckteach 14 years ago

lol - watchin it now on TCM - shiny...! Taylor and Garner (and Marie-Saint) are terrific..!
- no, it's not possible, and a cunning intelligence officer should snoop out the ruse being played on him - but it's a great 'con' anyway... I think we can suspend our belief a bit over the minor details -

- btw: tv show Mission Impossible made an episode not too long after this that used the same device -- only this time they drugged a mobster and tricked him into thinking he had gone back in time.. the idea was to get him to divulge the whereabouts of a body..! and they made the mobster y-o-u-n-g-e-r, using techniques that lasted only a few hours..

- Sensory Deprivation itself is scarier than anything you see in fiction.. if you read 'Cardinal of the Kremlin' by Tom Clancy, you will read about the scary version of the http://www.floattank.com/what.html .....(float tank..)

- subjects are drugged and floated in this tank, by the KGB... when they awake, they are in this dreamlike, trance state... ouch - needless to say, it's terrifying.. and, yes, the subjects talk after a short duration.. and talk and talk...!

:-) canuckteach (--:

[–] lrcdmnhd72 13 years ago

Hi Warden,

I think Pike (James Garner) would have eventually seen thru this deception. I got the impression he was getting a little suspicious of Anna moments before he spilled the salt shaker by the way he looked at her.

If I were in Pike's shoes, I may have asked for a telephone to call British military personnel. It would have been interesting what the Germans' response to this would have been.

[–] knight_sentinel 14 years ago

How does one feel older? I'm 50 and I work out every day just like I did when I was in my mid 20's, and I don't feel any different physically than I did when I was 30 or 40. I don't have a lot of grey hair and I don't have any wrinkles. It was only six years most people don't change that much in six years, unless something happens to them like an illness or an accident.

I could see if they had told him he had lost 10 or 15 years, but different people age differently based on their lifestyle, and how they handle stress both of which can make a person age even faster.

I've seen people who are younger than I am who look my age, and a lot of people I knew when I was younger that smoked look a lot older than the people I knew who didn't.

I have a friend who is 10 years older than I am and she has crows feet, something that I don't have, but she's a serious smoker and goes out drinking several times a week.

If you blacked out either from an accident or because you were given something, and awoke in a hospital if they told you that you'd been unconscious or in a coma for a while most people would believe the doctors, one because it would never cross anyone's mind that the doctors would be lying. it might be harder to do over a longer period of time it might be harder to keep up such a pretense unless the person was completely isolated, but just a few days and with the elaborate setup the Germans had, it's plausible.

It's why they isolate prisoners, eventually they lose track of time when kept in isolated captivity. they can count down days, but knowing exactly the time of day or week is not that easy without some reference.

Movies will make you famous; Television will make you rich; But theatre will make you good.

[–] vpilutis 13 years ago

Back in Feb 6, 1996 the pedal on my bike broke and I hit my head, they said they found me sitting on the curb, I recall nothing about the accident, or the trip to the Hosp or anything between.
I do recall in the E.R. saying over and over what happen, what happen?
At one point it looked like they were using the heart paddles, they weren't.
At first I just couldn't recall Xmas or New Year.

Funny how the mind works

BTW the 36 hrs bit was also used on Ness in an ep of The Untouchables.

Also on a few other TV shows I can't recall.

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[–] knight_sentinel 13 years ago

It's stary line that is used several times on the original "Mission: Impossible" one of the actors they used in one story line was William Shatner, but in that story line they had use of a studio back lot that they were able to make look like his old stopping grounds when he was young, and with the help of some mysterious concoction they were able to make the made to look old Shatner look young again, and to make him think he was back in the era of his youth as a young mobster. They even gave him a drug to get rid of his arthritis temporarily.

They also did a similar story line with Donnelly Rhodes who later played Dr. Cottle on the re-imagined "Battlestar Galactica". In the episode they conned Rhodes' character into thinking several years had passed, because he was put into cryogenic suspension, because they fooled him into thinking he had an incurable disease.

Both episodes were to get them to reveal a secret, because the statute was running out on one case, and the other involved a murder where the victim was never found.

Those are just two but they even did another where they conned some crime boss into thinking he'd found the Fountain of Youth, by making him look young again using the same techniques they used in the Shatner episode.

In the Shatner and Rhodes episodes, the objective was to convince them that it was a different time one in the past and one in the future.

Movies will make you famous; Television will make you rich; But theatre will make you good.

[–] vpilutis 13 years ago

I recall them all except the reasons for the deception(s)
How about the one where they made a Eva Perón type dictator look MUCH younger so no one knew her?

Funny thing two years Nimoy was on MI and William Shatner never guested until after Nimoy left

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[–] knight_sentinel 13 years ago

I tried to correct that statement on IMDb twice, because you're right they never worked together on that series, while Nimoy was on the series. I know they were still friends at the time, Shatner stated that Nimoy helped out when Shatner's wife at the time when she was dealing with alcoholism, something Nimoy was recovering from at the time.

Nimoy did guest star on an episode of 'T.J. Hooker".

The episode with the female dictator was a weird one as well. What's interesting is that the medical community can inject people with collagen and botox to remove wrinkles, and make some people look different, I don't know if they all look younger, but they look different.

The one with Shatner was to find where his character had placed the body of someone he had murdered when he was young, they had never been able to get anything on he and his partner in their organized crime "Syndicate" to put them away, and murder has no statute of limitations.

The one with Rhodes was because his character had stolen some money and hidden it somewhere, and the statute of limitations was running out, and his character was being released from prison, and would have been able to retrieve and claim the money without being prosecuted, they conned him onto thinking he was in the future only to con him into believing it was one day after the statute had run out.

Movies will make you famous; Television will make you rich; But theatre will make you good.

[–] vpilutis 13 years ago

Well in the case of TJ this was just after STAR TREK II came out, in this same story Vic Tayback who was one of the Dons in "A Peice of the Action" also guested.
Of course this didn't hurt box office sales of STII either

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[–] knight_sentinel 13 years ago

I think most of those guys bounced around as guest stars on one Desilu production or another, at that time Desilu was doing "Mannix", "Mission: Impossible" and "Star Trek" although "Mannix" started a year later. In the film "Gattica" the work place is very similar in tone to the first season of "Mannix".

Vic Tayback was on a series called "Khan!" and George Takei was a guest star on that series.

The episode that George Takei guest starred on when he did "Mission: Impossible" he played biologist with the IMF team and they were trying to stop some agents in Potemkin type village from coming to the U.S. who were all going to be infected with a plague, what I always found interesting is that the leader of the village portray by Arthur Hill is later cast and stars in the film "The Andromeda Strain".

I just saw that there was a topic where someone asked about this preceding the third episode of "Mission: Impossible", it just goes to show how much they recycle ideas.

Movies will make you famous; Television will make you rich; But theatre will make you good.

[–] skiddoo 12 years ago

There was also a reverse twist to this storyline in The Prisoner where he became aware that he had been worked over a long time because his injured fingernail had grown out. In that one and in this movie, the person had every reason to be suspicious of those around him and their tricks.

[–] intexor 12 years ago

If we're talking about a couple of years, it must be possible. This is a 50 year old movie and I was quite impressed to how much detail is shown to go into the process. I did not notice any mistakes and I had forgotten about the paper cut so it wasn't immediately clear what tipped him off until he says what it was.

Like other people stated, longer periods may be more difficult, but I guess you could weaken someone's basic health level or create the impression of various age ailments too.

[–] jackmronner 11 years ago

A little hair dye and a healthy dose of vanity? Who wouldn't be pleased to see that they hadn't aged badly? I think anyone would accept that gladly, and it would certainly pale amidst all the other worries and weirdness of losing years of your life to amnesia and finding the world changed so totally. Most importantly, what kind of drastic change do you think are effected by the passage from, let's say, 25 through 31? You're not exactly decrepit and withered.

[–] Darvidd 10 years ago

It's true that a few years from 30 to 35 or so isn't a problem-they could have induced something that was supposed to be a result of the 'beating' he took-a limp or scar on the face etc but they had covered enough bases without gilding the lily.

'What is an Oprah?'-Teal'c.

[–] Wuchakk 8 years ago

A little hair dye

It was a mistake to dye his hair because you can always smell it when your hair is freshly dyed. This would've immediately tipped him off that something fishy was going on.

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