Fourteen Hours

Fourteen Hours is a 1951 drama film directed by Henry Hathaway, which tells the story of a New York police officer trying to stop a despondent man from jumping to his death from the fifteenth floor of a hotel. This won critical acclaim for Richard Basehart, who portrayed the mentally disturbed man on the building ledge. Paul Douglas played the officer, and a large supporting cast included Barbara Bel Geddes, Agnes Moorehead, Robert Keith, Debra Paget and Howard Da Silva. It was the screen debut of Grace Kelly and Jeffrey Hunter, who appeared in small roles. The screenplay was written by John... Paxton, based on an article by Joel Sayre in The New Yorker. Sayre's article described the 1938 incident upon which the film was based. Early one morning, a room service waiter at a New York City hotel is horrified to discover that the young man to whom he has just delivered breakfast is standing on the narrow ledge outside his room on the fifteenth floor. Charlie Dunnigan , a policeman on traffic duty in the street below, tries to talk him off the ledge to no avail.
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