36 Hours

36 Hours is a 1964 American war thriller film written for the screen and directed by George Seaton from a story by Carl K. Hittleman and Luis Vance, based on the 1944 short story "Beware of the Dog" by Roald Dahl. The film stars James Garner, Eva Marie Saint, Rod Taylor, and Werner Peters. In the plot, a Nazi German army doctor tries to obtain vital information from an American military intelligence officer by convincing him that it is 1950 and World War II is long over. Plot Having attended General Eisenhower's final briefing on the upcoming Normandy landings, U.S. Army Major Jeff Pike is sent to Lisbon, Portugal on June 1, 1944, to meet an informant to confirm that the Nazis still expect the invasion at the Pas de Calais. He is abducted and transported to Germany. Pike wakes up in what looks like a U.S. Army hospital. His hair is graying, and he needs glasses to read. He is told it is May 1950 and he is in post-war occupied Germany. Psychiatrist Major Walter Gerber explains that Pike has been having episodes of amnesia since he was tortured in Lisbon. He advises Pike that his blocked memories have always resurfaced, helped along by a therapy of remembering events prior to Lisbon and then pushing forward into the blank period. Various props including U.S. Army jeeps and uniforms, baseball, and fake letters, newspaper and radio broadcasts, are used to carefully convince Pike that the year is 1950 and that he is among fellow Americans. He is assisted by a German nurse, the dispassionate Anna Hedler. Pike is taken in by the deception. As part of his "therapy," he recounts the critical details of the invasion plans, including the location and the date, June 5, to his eager listeners. When Pike notices a nearly invisible paper cut he got the day he left for Lisbon, he realizes that he has been deceived. He confirms it by tricking an "American" soldier into reflexively snapping to attention in the German manner. He confronts Anna, who admits that the date is June 2, 1944. She was recruited from a concentration camp because she was a nurse and spoke English.