36 Hours (MGM) (1964)

DESCRIPTION OF JAMES GARNER: “WHAT A BENZEDRINE TAKES WHEN IT'S TIRED” As Hollywood director George Seaton observes: “James Garner is what a benzedrine takes when it’s tired.” The inexhaustible energy and almost incredible physical endurance of James Garner is as much a part of him as his accepted good looks, imposing physique and unique admission (for Hollywood) that he enjoys what he is doing — which is working. There isn’t a motion picture producer who hasn’t put in his bid for Garner. As one nationally syndicated writer put it, “If MGM had struck oil they couldn’t be planning more important activities than they are for James Garner, now that. they have him under contract.” The writer referred to the fact that on the heels of his latest Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film, “36 Hours,” a dramatic story of the fateful hours before D-Day, the studio immediately announced plans to star Garner in the screen version of Leon Uris’ novel, “Armageddon,” one of Metro’s biggest projects for 1965. He had previously starred at MGM in “The Wheeler Dealers” and “The Americanization of Emily,” “Work is something I enjoy,” Garner says. “If I didn’t I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing. I chose acting. No one forced me into it. And the pay’s good.” In fifteen years, Garner has upped his salary from $65 a week as a gasoline station attendant to a six-digit annual income. Acting is only part of his work program. He is also a good businessman and recently bought in on a bank. In addition to this investment he owns an apartment house, a percentage in an automobile parts company, an interest in a shopping center and a couple of oil wells. “Acting is an insecure way of earning a living,” he reasons. “Merely because I like being an actor is no reason why I should jeopardize the security of my family. Nor does the fact that I am an actor automatically rule me out as a businessman. I employ a good business manager and some good lawyers, They worry for me.” Garner is quick with a quip, shuns publicity, yet is friendly with the press (no mean achievement) and makes no pretense at being anything but a family man. His wife and two young daughters have priority. His sense of humor always shows. He even kept it intact throughout a lengthy lawsuit to break a former studio contract and divorce himself TENSE EPISODE! James Garner violently silences a terrified Eva Marie Saint in a tense scene of Metro-GoldwynMayer’s “36 Hours.’’ Rod Taylor also stars in the gripping drama of thirty-six suspenseful hours during World War IT, in which the history of the world might have beenchanged. Still 1826-42 36 Hours Mat 1-C James Garner, playing a captured American Intelligence officer who has been ‘‘aged”’ by the Nazis in a remarkable experiment, finds difficulty in recognizing himself in MetroGoldwyn-Mayer’s ‘°36 Hours.”’ Eva Marie Saint and Rod Taylor also star in the suspenseful drama of an ingenious trick played by the Germans in an effort to obtain vital details of the Normandy Invasion. Still 1826-17 36 Hours Mat 1-B from the highly successful TV series, “Maverick,” “I found that no one knew Jim Garner,” he said. “They only knew Maverick. This does something to a man’s ego. No matter how much someone protests that he has no ego, don’t believe it. Show me an actor without an ego and I’ll show you a dud.” Frankness makes up a big part of Garner, a trait which has him universally tagged as a “nice guy.” He’s frank about the fact that he wants to be a good actor and that he isn’t satisfied to be a mere “Hollywood personality.” “Garner is that rarity among young actors, one who cannot be _ typed,” points out Seaton, his director on “36 Hours.” “He is the perfect, handsome leading man and has proved it opposite such stars as Doris Day, Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine and any number of others. But watch him as the serious American officer of ‘36 Hours.’ This is a role which demanded depth of feeling and emotional sensitivity.” Garner’s personal magnetism offscreen is equally potent. During the Yosemite location on “36 Hours,” he was the catalyst of the troupe, which included 160 Hollywood extras in addition to co-stars Eva Marie Saint and Rod Taylor, He had Taylor, along with Seaton and producer William Perlberg, on the nearby golf course an hour before cameras turned at 8 a.m. After dinner, whenever he discovered anyone, Miss Saint, included, who hadn’t seen the glories of Yosemite, he was at the wheel of his convertible to drive the 27 miles over hairpin-curved roads to show off Yosemite’s Fire Fall and Big Trees. When everyone else was ready to call it a day, Garner was just beginning— benzadrine (pure Garner) at work! CROSSES OCEAN 10 MAKE STAR ‘OLDER’ For Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s taut new drama, “36 Hours,’ James Garner spent a week of location filming in Lisbon, Portugal. It is here that sequences were filmed in which Garner, playing a U. S. Intelligence officer who has been kidnapped by the Nazis, wakes up in the belief that six years have passed since he was kidnapped. Thus, he has to look six-years older. This entailed a special make-up problem, since the “aging” effect had to be a highly subtle one. When ordinary make-up ministrations failed to achieve the desired results, co-producers William Perlberg and George Seaton put in a hurry call to the MGM Studios. On the following day, a plane arrived in Lisbon bearing famed make-up expert William Tuttle. And within an hour, Garner was ready to go into his scene—looking exactly six-years older ! CAST Major Jefferson Pike --..--........ James Garner Anna Hedler 2-22-25. es Eva Marie Saint Major Walter Gerber ...............--Rod Taylor MitorSchack 37a see ces Werner Peters ERIS tices een ncoree ee. He esee ea John Banner General Allison -................--Russell Thorson Colonel Peter Maclean ...........Alan Napier Lt. Colone] Ostermann .............. Oscar Beregi Captain Abbott 2.22... Ed Gilbert GermaniGuard) ee Sig Ruman =| Kc feet eRe Ta eee Celia Lovsky GorporalitKenier: 2:23.52. 2 Karl Held [tie fo) eee Sarasa ee Ae Er, Martin Kosleck Charwomanis..2. es Marjorie Bennett German Soldier .................--Henry Rowland GermaniSoldier’-.22...2)=----. Otto Reichow GermanAgent -_-.....---._-.-Hilda Plowright DENKGF aose-sctvens ceoss ee Walter Friedel temkeras eo te Joseph Mell Produced by William Perlberg. Directed by George Seaton. Screen Play by George Seaton. Based on ‘Beware of the Dog’ by Roald Dahl. And a story by Carl K. Hittleman and Luis H. Vance. Music Composed and Conducted by Dimitri Tiomkin. Director of Photography: Philip H. Lathrop, A.S.C. In Panavision. Art Direction: George W. Davis and Edward Carfagno. Set Decoration: Henry Grace, Frank McKelvy. Film Editor: Adrienne Fazan, A.C.E. Assistant Director: Donald Roberts. Make-Up Supervision: William Tuttle. Hair Styles by Sydney Guilaroff. Recording Supervisor: Franklin Milton. Made in cooperation with Cherokee Productions. A Perlberg-Seaton Production. Presented by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. MANHANDLED Eva Marie Saint, co-starred with James Garner and Rod Taylor in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s taut drama, “36 Hours,” played her most “punishing” role in the new film. First, she gets slapped around by Garner when he discovers that she has betrayed him. Then, Werner Peters, playing the “heavy,” hurls Miss Saint across a room, punches her and ends up throwing her down a flight of stairs. By the time “36 Hours” was completed, the actress had some blue bruises to match her blue eyes! MAKE DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE James Garner and Eva Marie Saint make a desperate attempt to escape from pursuing Nazis in this scene from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s ‘*36 Hours.”’? Rod Taylor also stars in the gripping and suspenseful drama in which the events that transpire within thirty-six hours during World War II might have changed the history of the world, It was directed by George Seaton. Still 1826-49 36 Hours Mat 2-F James Garner and Eva Marie Saint find an unsuspected ally in John Banner in their attempt to escape from their Nazi pursuers in this scene from Metro-GoldwynMayer’s ‘‘36 Hours.’ Rod Taylor also stars in the gripping drama of thirty-six suspenseful hours in which the history of the world might have been changed. It is a new Perlberg-Seaton production. Still 1826-46 36 Hours Mat 2-E TERRIFYING SUSPENSE MARKS MGM'S EXPLOSIVE “36 HOURS,” STARRING JAMES GARNER, EVA MARIE SAINT AND ROD TAYLOR Said to be based on an actual plot perpetuated by the Nazis during World War II, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s “36 Hours,” starring James Garner, Eva Marie Saint and Rod Taylor, is a drama of terrifying suspense. The thirty-six hours of the title is the time period in which the outcome of the war might have been fatefully changed if an ingenious scheme devised by the Germans to gain vital information about the Normandy Invasion had succeeded. In the crucial hours before the invasion, U. S. Intelligence officer Major Pike (Garner) arrives in Lisbon from London fully briefed on the plans for D-Day. Led into a trap, he is captured and put under heavy sedation, and then is flown to Bad Alstadt, Bavaria, in a coffin. In a remarkable project, the Nazis have given the isolated resort a complete and deceiving transformation. Signposted “U. S. Military Hospital, Allied Occupation Forces,” its staff, patients and equipment are identifiably GI, including Medical Major Walter Gerber (Taylor) and Anna Hedler (Miss Saint), a young nurse who has shed all her tears as a former concentration camp prisoner, When Pike regains consciousness, he finds that he is a considerably older looking man, as the result of extraordinary “aging” experiments performed on him while he was unconscious. He is persuaded to believe that the date is 1950, that for the past six years he has been an amnesia victim, and that the Allies have won the war. He is thus induced to talk freely about the invasion and to reveal the plans of what he believes to be a past event. However, one detail of an occurrence which happened to Pike just prior to his leaving London has eluded the wily Nazis and his suspicions are aroused. He forces the nurse to admit that the date is June 2, 1944, and with growing horror realizes what has happened. To tell more of the plot of “36 Hours” would rob the spectator of the unremitting suspense which helps to make this such a gripping film. Sufficient to say that both Pike and Anna Hedler become victims of a relentless persecution, one in which the German medical officer Gerber is faced with the choice of putting humanity before duty to his country. And the tense climax, in which Pike and Anna attempt to escape to the Swiss border pursued by a vicious Gestapo agent (Werner Peters), is a terrifying experience. Having discovered the date and place of the Allied invasion, what use does the enemy make of this information by which the fate of the world could hang in the balance? The answer is as explosive as it is dramatic. “36 Hours” is the latest collaboration of William Perlberg and George Seaton, the producer-director team who have given the screen such effective pictures as “Counterfeit Traitor’ and “The Bridges at Toko-Ri.” The picture was photographed in Panavision, with certain exteriors filmed in Portugal and other locations shot in California at Yosemite National Park, where the American “hospital” and compound were constructed. Dimitri Tiomkin composed and conducted the musical score.