Saddled with an over-verbose script and mollycoddlingly dreary dialogue direction, this overtly promising spy melodrama turns out to be only intermittently exciting. It could have been considerably improved by really ruthless cutting. 115 minutes is too long to sustain suspense unless something really exciting is happening on-screen all the time. Here, all the unnecessary and often phony explanations could be judiciously cut to the bone. Another problem is that Rod Taylor is definitely not a convincing German – even with a dubbed voice to help him out. What's worse is that I didn't find either James Garner or Eva Marie Saint at all charismatic. Their verbose, over-padded dialogue merely serves as an excuse for one monotonous close-up after another. In fact, although lensed for the cinema wide screen, director George Seaton seems to have placed TV sales far more firmly in his mind. I believe this picture holds the record for the number of close-ups in an anamorphic movie. Widescreen framing is only used once or twice in the entire production. The rest of the slates are simply filled out with empty background space. Fortunately, production values are otherwise up to standard, and the climactic escape has its moments of suspense and genuine excitement (plus some human relief contributed by John Banner as a practical Home Guardsman). Of the other players, only Werner Peters, who contributes an effective characterization as the chief villain, deserves mention.
Review of 36 Hours
