14 Hours — Sexism and Homophobia in Hollywood

*Trigger warning: This movie is about a real-life suicide, please do not read if you are sensitive to this topic. Also, this essay has spoilers, if you did not see the movie, and want to experience it without spoilers, please go watch it before reading.

The movie 14 Hours is considered a “noir” film, it was released in 1951, directed by Henry Hathaway with a screenplay by John Paxton, based on an article by Joel Sayre in The New Yorker describing the 1938 suicide of John William Warde. This movie was based on a true story, John William Warde was a 26-year-old man who was on a ledge apparently for less than 14 hours, and a police officer disguised as a bellhop tried to convince him to return inside. John William Warde was 26, had 26 cents in his pocket and this happened on July 26, 1938. The event was quite similar to the one depicted in the film, although in the end, John William Warde ended up jumping or falling, there are contradictory reports. I have read several versions, one says he was startled by a photographer who came into the hotel room and took a picture of him just as he was about to step back in and fell to his death, another says he decided to jump himself, that he said: “I’ve made up my mind,” and he went off the ledge. John supposedly revealed a secret to officer Charles V. Glasco, who never told anyone, and no one knows what that secret was.