In the absorbing Korean War Era drama Time Limit, Major Harry Cargill (Richard Basehart) is charged with the capital offense of treason for, as the senior American officer in a North Korean POW camp, collaborating with the enemy. Colonel William Edwards (Richard Widmark) has the responsibility for investigating the case and then recommending a court martial. Since Cargill himself steadfastly admits the charges, all the surviving POWs share the same testimony and recordings of Cargill’s propaganda broadcasts exist, there doesn’t seem to any doubt that Cargill is headed for a trial for his life.
But some details seem fishy to Edwards, and he keeps probing for exculpatory evidence, despite resistance from Cargill himself, seemingly bent on martyring himself. There’s plenty of dramatic tension in this situation anyway, but the son of Edwards’ base commander, General Connors (Carl Benton Reid) died in the POW camp, and the general is fixated on swift justice..
Time Limit is a thinker, posing the philosophical question, when there are no good choices, does one choose most humane option, or follow the oath one has taken and go by the book? It takes Edwards a long time to drill into the truth, which poses its own question of moral and legal accountability (which may not be the same thing).
Time Limit has the look and feel of a play, which it is. Henry Denker adapted the screenplay from the play he co-wrote with Ralph Berkey. Time Limit is directed by Oscar-winning actor Karl Malden. It is his only feature film as a director (apart from filling in for 30 days on the Gary Cooper western The Hanging Tree).
Widmark is very good as the brooding, high-principled and stubborn Edwards; so is Basehart as the traumatized Cargill. There are plenty of memorable performances in Time Limit:
- Rip Torn is superb as a POW camp survivor, who initially masks his own trauma with a convincing confidence.
- Martin Balsam as the seasoned non-com with a cynical, clear-eyed view of how things work in the military. He is also comfortable in the devious audacity that comes from being one of the sergeants who really run things in the Army, no matter what the officers think.
- Dolores Michaels plays Corporal Jean Evans, Edwards’ perky office manager. It will not escape modern viewers that Cpl. Evans is always the smartest person in the room, although it’s clear that she will always stay as an admin because she is a woman. Her insights are explained by her being the daughter of a lawyer.
- June Lockhart plays Cargill’s bewildered wife.
Fresh off the experience of the Korean War, the topic of brainwashing was very topical in 1957. So was the situation of POWs, in an America where a huge majority of the adult males were WW II vets. Other movies of the period addressed this premise:
- The Rack (1956): A returning US army captain (Paul Newman) is court-martialed for collaborating with the enemy while a POW. He was tortured, and The Rack explores what can be realistically expected of a prisoner under duress. It’s a pretty good movie, and Wendell Corey and Walter Pidgeon co-star. The Rack occasionally plays on TCM and can be streamed on Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube and Fandango.
- Act of Violence (1949): In the extremity of a Nazi prisoner of war camp, Frank (Van Heflin) was faced by a situation with no good choices; he knows (correctly) that few in 1949 America will be able to see his action in that context. I’ve tagged Act of Violence as “the single most underrated film noir“. Act of Violence regularly plays on Turner Class Movies and can be streamed on Watch TCM.
- Not to mention, of course, Stalag 17 (collaboration POW camps) and The Manchurian Candidate (North Korean brainwashing).
I watched it on TCM, where is occasionally plays, but you can find Time Limit on Amazon and AppleTV.
