Time Limit (1957)
Among those who attend law school in America and pass their state’s Bar exam, few attorneys even transition out of their chosen profession to become authors of fiction or playwrights. Henry Denker proved an exception. The New York Law School (NYLS)-trained attorney gained admission to the New York Bar in 1935, but left his work as a theater lawyer to pursue creative writing. Through the late 1930s into the 1950s, Denker was a journeyman writer for various radio and television shows – most visibly for his Peabody-cited work, The Greatest Story Ever Told (1947-1956), which dramatized moments in the life of Jesus Christ. During his time on The Greatest Story Ever Told, Denker began to write fiction and plays. His earliest work (out of print, with even numerous synopses nonexistent online) has been impossible to research looking at free resources via the Internet. Yet, Denker’s later literary and theatrical career reveal a former lawyer ruminating about the American justice system – its strengths, its flaws, its blind spots.
His 1956 debut play Time Limit! (co-written by Ralph Berkey, who also has precious little information available about him online) would, sans exclamation mark, be adapted by United Artists (UA) the following year. The film stars and was co-produced by Richard Widmark (1947’s Kiss of Death, 1961’s Judgment at Nuremberg). Widmark suggested to UA that his fellow actor friend, Karl Malden (Kiss of Death, Mitch in both the original stage version and 1951 film adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire), have a go at directing. UA agreed, as did Malden, who thought it might be an interesting experience. With Malden’s direction and Denker adapting his own play for the film, Time Limit is numerous things at once that appealed to all three men: an examination of American military justice, as well as a Cold War-influenced morality play with McCarthyism in mind.
Malden’s film is often stagey, doing very little with the limited sets (most of this film takes place in three adjoining rooms) or the camera. Yet it is a functional, fascinating work, if you do not mind too much scene-chewing.
We start in a flashback to the Korean War, at a North Korean POW camp in the dead of winter. After North Korean guards gun down Lieutenant Harvey (Manning Ross) after an attempt to escape, we see Major Harry Cargill (a solid Richard Basehart) being instructed by the camp commander (Khigh Dhiegh in regrettable yellowface) to indoctrinate his fellow Americans in Communist propaganda as much as possible.
Transitioning to the present day at Fort Jay in New York, Colonel William Edwards (Widmark) is investigating whether or not to bring charges of treason against Maj. Cargill. General Connors (Carl Benton Reid), whose son died at that aforementioned POW camp, is urging Edwards to make a recommendation on a potential court martial soon. Other American troops imprisoned in the camp at the time, including Lt. George Miller (Rip Torn), tell Edwards that they believe Cargill guilty of treason. Cargill, to Edwards’ vexation, refuses to defend himself. Yet what appears to be an open-and-shut case is anything but, Edwards investigates links between Cargill’s testimony and everyone else’s that just do not add up.
Some other casting notes: Dolores Michaels plays Edwards’ secretary, Corporal Jean Evans; June Lockhart (her final film until 1981, she joined the Lassie TV series the following year) plays Mrs. Cargill; and Martin Balsam plays the opinionated Sergeant First Class Baker.
Time Limit never escapes beyond the confines of its stage play origins. Sure, the POW camp scenes make use of the mountains of a ranch in Agoura, California, but Malden and cinematographer Sam Leavitt (1945’s The Picture of Dorian Gray,1959’s Anatomy of a Murder) never utilize the landscape as much as they could. Almost every single shot in this film is a medium or a medium-close shot. If I had not seen the film in high definition on Turner Classic Movies, I may have otherwise assumed it was a television movie from the 1950s.
The only moment of aesthetic interest comes during Time Limit’s final flashback – inside the barracks, barely illuminated, with just enough light to see the faces of the men willing to commit to a heinous act. The suggestion of violence, just barely off-screen, and painfully audible to all those in the room, is one of two shattering moments that must have elicited the strongest emotions during the stage play – Edwards’ visit of Mrs. Cargill being the other.
Although the title makes this film (and its original play) sound like a thriller, Time Limit’s principal concerns are the limits of heroism; the rigidity of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and those who enforce it; and the conflicts between duty to others, duty to do what is right, and duty to nation. To spell out any of these topics, too specifically, in the context of Time Limit is to unspool a plot that needs as little foreknowledge as possible to land with the greatest impact.
Back in the 1950s and even today, Americans tended to conflate heroism and military service in the United States. The nation that turned the tide against Nazi Germany in Europe and North Africa and against Imperial Japan in the Pacific, following that war, flattened the service of its servicemembers. Whether in administrative, combat, intelligence, or strategic roles, anyone who donned a uniform was a hero. The pedestal given to too many soldiers, as Time Limit shows, obscures our perceptions of death and violence – that military violence has a purpose; that death in war or in captivity has some sort of meaning. Perhaps that meaning is sacrifice for a greater good, some testament of individual endurance and strength. Denker’s play and his adapted screenplay ask aloud what happens if, after all, none of those things apply? What then do we believe about our erstwhile heroes? The film’s second half (as well as its title) strike at the heart of these questions, with emotionally explosive exchanges between Widmark, Basehart, and Torn underlying the seriousness of the events under investigation.
To quote another piece of narrative art that grappled with the ethics of war, it is easy to be a saint in paradise. Does the United States’ military justice system recognize that, though? In this legal drama with nary a courtroom in sight (a reminder: this entire film covers the judge adjutant general’s investigative proceedings before deciding whether or not to proceed to a court martial), Carl Benton Reid’s General Connors is a stickler for the UCMJ – caring only for the ends, and little for the means. Traitorous activity, even under enemy duress or influence, is an affront to the uniform. In this clean, somewhat sterile fort office in view of New York City, it seems as if he, as well as SFC Baker, have already made up their minds. Yet their stations within a JAG office should require their impartiality, a presumption of innocence until proven guilty, and a belief in a jury to render a just verdict.
In real life, a commanding officer at a JAG office would supervise both prosecutions and defenses. Connors’ belief that the case should go to court martial without having pored through all of the evidence himself should raise concerns about his impartiality – although I suspect this development is due to dramatic convenience. But there still remains worthy drama if Col. Edwards’ commanding officer is as neutral as he should be. I would argue that the drama would be greater because Edwards has to be neutral over a case seemingly adjacent to his son’s death in North Korea. Yet, Denker’s screenplay (and his play) take the easier, emotional route to the film’s dramatic climax and through its legal and personal tensions.
It is mostly up to Richard Widmark to navigate the maddening detours of the witness and potential defendant’s testimonies – their contradictions, their lies, and their painful truths. Widmark, playing a character less sure of himself here than his next role as a military attorney (Judgment at Nuremberg), keeps his tone of voice in Time Limit’s angriest moments just below explosive, but his face tells of weeks, if not months, of angry bewilderment towards all parties in this case. A moment – something I assumed was a faithful adaptation from the play – where he slaps one of the witnesses is one of the clumsier moments for the screenplay, something that a good performance cannot save.
Richard Basehart (1951’s House on Telegraph Hill, 1954’s La Strada), saves his best acting for the flashbacks and for his one scene playing against Carl Benton Reid. Basehart’s performance in the closing minutes is easily the most theatrical of the cast – raising his voice after a dramatic crescendo, the tenor of his voice, exploding as if holding something back for far too long. But, given the context of those scenes, he earns the right to act as such.
When it made its theatrical debut in October 1957, audience and critical reception to Karl Malden’s adaptation of Time Limit was more warmly receptive to the film’s ideas, while Malden’s direction was politely commended. Malden, appreciative of the experience directing his film, never directed again. For his part, Malden said he, “preferred being a good actor to being a fairly good director.”
Karl Malden’s words sum up Time Limit aptly. It brings forth its moral underpinnings early, subordinating visual invention to a fascinating scenario. While Denker’s screenplay probably adapts his stage play too closely (in terms of how this adaptation works as a piece of cinema and the operational realities of JAG offices), this is a nerve-shredding work largely thanks to that screenplay and the ensemble cast. Denker, who spent a portion of his writing career examining the world of his prior occupation, asks startling questions that those working in any justice system must ask themselves. Can one’s ideal of justice or some sort of written legal code, when chafing against human fallibility, render a just outcome after a compromised process? Is it possible to question one’s way to such an outcome?
Whatever your answers to those questions, they require minds unburdened by assumption, willing to change as far as the unfeeling text of the law allows.
My rating: 7.5/10
^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog. Half-points are always rounded down.
For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.
