August 17 movie: 36 Hours. This one I did write up before. Last time the thing that bothered me most was the basic premise, that a man who knew all the details of the Normandy invasion would be put in a position where he might be captured by the Germans. This time I saw the first few minutes, and I'm disappointed to say that the setup was even more lame than I had imagined.
The British tell Garner everything about the impending invasion, then tell him that he has to go to Lisbon as usual for his weekly meeting with his contact. When Garner suggests that he shouldn't leave Britain with this knowledge in his head, they shrug and say that the Nazis have never violated the neutrality of Lisbon before, why would they start now? And besides, it would look suspicious if he didn't go. I really wished Garner would have said "Did it occur to you idiots not to tell me about the invasion then?" Honestly, if the British high command had truly acted so stupidly, we'd probably all be speaking German now.
That said, I still enjoyed the movie. It has well-paced tension, a good psychological thriller, & also explores the divided loyalties of Rod Taylor, both a patriot and a scientist. Plus there are small parts for John Banner (Sergeant Schultz) and Alan Napier (Alfred on Batman).
Hey, I just looked this movie up on IMDB and saw that the screenplay was written by Roald Dahl! I thought he only wrote children's stories.
Roald Dahl was known as a mystery writer before he took up children's literature.