Time Limit

Major Cargill, taken prisoner in the Korean War, is accused of collaborating with the enemy in the camp. What is more, he admits it himself. The job of Colonel Edwards, who runs the investigation, looks easy, and his own superiors want the file sent to court martial as soon as possible. But the further Edwards goes, the more he notices the gap between what the man says and what he does not. This is the only film Karl Malden directed. It was adapted from a Broadway play and keeps the smell of the stage: almost all of it takes place in rooms, moving forward through talk. The subject is less treason than where a person's endurance ends and who is entitled to judge someone who passes that point. Richard Widmark and Richard Basehart face each other across it. The question the film asks is still uncomfortable.