James Garner plays an intelligent officer who is captured in the eve of the D-Day invasion. The Germans try to trick him into think six years had passed and that the war was over in order to get him to reveal what he knows.Off beat spy yarn is a clever idea but never quite gels. Give it points for not going in the direction you'd expect, it doesn't take long before Garner figures out its ruse and then things don't go as you'd think.I like the film more for what it tries to do rather than for what it accomplishes. Its an interesting misfire, thats worth seeing for that reason

As a matter of record, there were hundreds of soldiers who returned to the States with little memory of what their role was in World War Two. Here in this story called " 36 Hours " an Intelligent's Officer (James Garner) Major Jefferson F. Pike is given the latest secret plans for the Invasion of Normandy and is thereafter sent to Lisbon Portugal to ascertain if the German High Command are chasing the false ruses put out by the Allies. What the U.S Intelligence office does not know is, the Major is unexpectedly kidnapped and sent to Germany to undergo a daring experimental scheme. The Germans' have a highly educated Phychiatrist, Major Walter Gerber (Rod Taylor) who is going to try and convince the Major, that not only is World War II is over, but it is now six years in the future. With the help of Anna Hedler (Eva Marie Saint) heading a highly trained staff of English speaking Germans and a secret, isolated military compound they hope to trick him into revealing the Allies invasion plans. All things go according to plan until the one thing they had hoped would not happen does. Although Garner proves to command the screen with his role, it is Taylor who elicits sympathy for his compassionate character and we discover ourselves rooting for Gerber to succeed. A dramatic film and one which allows the audience to wait impatiently for the hours to be extended. ****

The television series "Mission: Impossible" started out being a variation on two different caper films, "Topkapi" and "Rififi," involving heists against seemingly "impossible" targets. But it quickly evolved into a "con of the week" show thanks to the two writers, William Read Woodfield and Allan Balter, who wrote the majority of the scripts during its first three seasons.What does this have to do with "36 Hours"? Well, a year before "Mission" even premiered, "36 Hours" presented a story remarkably similar to what the producers of "Mission" did week after week: if someone was placed in an isolated situation and given only enough information to make the setting appear real -- here, to convince American Major Jefferson Pike, played by James Garner, that the war has been over for years -- then that person might genuinely believe the "false front," and might also come to believe that revealing military secrets (such as the date and location of the D-Day invasion) is harmless. Indeed, this movie closely resembles -- or is resembled by -- an early episode of "Mission" known as "Operation Rogosh," the first to use this same confidence trick known as the "time shift," to make the subject think, like Maj. Pike here, that with the (false) passage of time, once precious secrets are no longer important.Of course, unlike the folks on the television series, the people who are operating the "big store" that was created for Maj. Pike are the bad guys, and therefore the audience desperately wants him to see through the deception. It all sounds implausible, yet by coloring his hair as if had gone slightly gray, fuzzing his vision enough so that he seems to need reading glasses, and completing the background with just enough personal articles stolen from his London flat, the illusion is strong enough to make him believe the story, at least at the outset.A surprise is Australian Rod Taylor as an American-born German psychiatrist who is the primary confidante for Garner's character, as well as Eva Marie Saint as a nurse who is a different kind of confidante -- with a strong incentive to make the deception work. And for a time it does . . . so convincingly, in fact, that it seems perfectly natural for Garner's character to give them exactly what they want. Of course, with the then-major star that Taylor was in the role, it's foregone that he won't be as unsympathetic as some of the other Nazi characters.The movie is also spiced with a thoroughly-believable Celia Lovsky as a sympathetic local villager -- and John Banner, best known for playing Sgt. Schultz on "Hogan's Heroes" as a real hero here! Unfortunately, this movie is not as well-known as those that came along later, such as "Mission" and "The Sting," but perhaps now that it's out on DVD, that will change. A winning film from beginning to end.

This was a very well thought out movie. My father wrote the screen-play as a ghost writer and I wish he could have received the credit. Unfortunately, it was the way things operated at the time, he was blacklisted due to Senator McCarthy... I remember his toiling away on this plot and asking us for feedback. He was only able to sell the book rights. This was because he was at one time a temporary member of the communist party. As a result of this and being "blacklisted," he moved the family down to Mexico and continued writing under a pseudonym. I hope people enjoy this movie and will continue to comment. I am trying to get another copy since the one I loaned out was never returned to me.