Paper Cut Prompts Memory

I gave myself a wee paper cut this morning while I was tearing off a page on one of my page-a-day calendars. I know: Every paper cut is in a way wee (you don't usually cut off your hand), but by wee this morning I mean: No blood appeared. Always a good sign, whatever your endeavor.

It was the second one I'd awarded myself this week. The previous one was amusing, annoying, painful. While reaching in my jeans pocket to grab my pack of gum, I sliced my finger on the edge of the thin cardboard packaging--qualifying, I guess, as a "cardboard cut" (more alliterative), though paper and cardboard are kin. Lots of blood on that one. Band-Aid. Foul language that I'm sure my mother could hear out in western Massachusetts--hear and condemn. (The only "curse" I ever heard her say--and rarely--was "Hell's bells.")

Anyway, the wee cut this morning for some reason reminded me of a 1964 movie, 36 Hours,** which I saw at the Hiram College Sunday night movies. I see on IMDB that it was released late in 1964, so I probably saw it later in 1965, my junior year at Hiram College.

I did not remember until I saw the poster that James Garner was in it, too.  (I'd thought the main role was Rod Taylor's; I was wrong--oh, foul traitorous memory!) Garner had been a favorite of mine in the old TV show Maverick (1957-62), and, later (of course!) in The Rockford Files, to which I remain addicted.

So anyway, although Taylor (who'd starred in Hitchcock's The Birds) has a very key role, the real star of this WW II film was Garner, who plays an American officer kidnapped and drugged by the Germans, who, using English-speaking Germans posing as American medical and military personnel (Taylor and others), try to convince him that he's been in a coma. The war is long over, they tell him, and he gradually believes it.

Garner (L), Taylor (R)
note how Nazis have "aged" Garner to make him think
that much time has passed

What the Germans really want is for Garner to spill the beans about the plans for the imminent Allied invasion--a goal they try to accomplish with genial conversation. And just as he's about to spill?

A paper cut comes into play. (I'll not spoil this anymore. (Link to trailer for the film.)

A final surprise: Looking over the list of credits on IMDB, I see that Roald Dahl worked on the screenplay. Odd.  I don't remember any chocolate factories or BFGs in the story?


**Available (DVD) on Netflix--just popped it to the top of my queue.