'14 Hours' a tall tale about tall buildings

It's St. Patrick's Day in New York City.
A crowd is forming for the big parade.
Suddenly someone notices a man on the ledge.
Long before the TV series "24 Hours," there was the 1951 film "14 Hours."
Richard Basehart, who later gained fame on the TV series "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," plays the main character who wants to end it all.
This film noir was pretty much forgotten until the DVD was released this past August.
It might best be remembered as the film debut of Grace Kelley, who went on to make classics like "Rear Window" before cutting her career short five years later to become a princess.
In fact, Kelley's role in the movie, that of a young woman ready to divorce, probably could have been cut altogether since it has little to do with the primary plot.
Basehart plays Robert Cosick, a man we know little about at the beginning of the picture and don't know much more about at the end.
He has an overbearing mother, played by Agnes Moorehead, who played an overbearing mother in "Citizen Kane" and played an overbearing mother in TV's "Bewitched."
His alcoholic father is played by Robert Keith.
My favorites in the film are Paul Douglas, playing Charlie Dunnigan, and Barbara Bel Geddes as Virginia Foster.
The Douglas character is a traffic cop who is first at the scene. He tries to talk to the Basehart character, offers him a cigarette (everyone offered everyone a cigarette in 1951) and tries to relate, unlike the professionals at the job who show no humanity.
It's too bad Bel Geddes wasn't in more films. She plays Basehart's former girlfriend, who still loves him and wants to help.
Bel Geddes, Moorehead, Keith and Dunnigan are all paraded to the window to try to help Basehart.
This is a technically superb picture. It looks authentic and there are some heart-in-the-mouth scenes as rescuers work behind the scenes to save the guy.
The movie is based on an actual event that took place in the 1930s.
While technically it looks good, let me tell you, in the year 2007, no reporters would be allowed inside the building, let alone inside the room in which Basehart climbed out onto the ledge from. I doubt if they were permitted to roam around like that in 1951 either.
If you wonder why he's Basehart is out on the ledge, you either have to be very perceptive or listen to the audio commentary by film historian Foster Hirch or check out the Internet movie database or keep reading.
OK, I'll tell you. Basehart feels ostracized because he is homosexual and well, you can't talk about being homosexual in 1951.
Heck, you couldn't be homosexual in 1951.
It would be interesting to see a remake of this picture, giving it a more contemporary feel.
Still, it is worth seeing just for the atmosphere of the film and performances by Bel Geddes and Douglas.
It's a tall tale about adventures on tall buildings. Give it a look.

This appeared in Weekender May 25, 2007 in the Ashtabula Star Beacon.