during the 50 days of shooting in New York, even though he had a sprained ankle and his legs were ravaged by poison oak contracted on the grounds of his Coldwater Canyon home. Basehart's wife, costume designer Stephanie Klein, was diagnosed with a brain tumor during filming of Fourteen Hours in May and June 1950, and died following brain surgery during production of the film that July. Returning to work, Basehart sprained an ankle, then contracted poison oak while cutting down a tree at home. He resumed filming with legs bandaged. Postproduction The film originally ended with Robert falling to his death. Both endings were shot, and Hathaway preferred the realistic ending that showed Robert falling to the ground, as occurred in the Warde incident. However, on 17 July 1950, Dionysia Skouras, the daughter of Fox president Spyros Skouras jumped to her death from the roof of the Fox West Coast Building. (She had recently spent time in a sanitarium.) Skouras wanted the film shelved, but instead released Fourteen Hours six months later with the ending that showed Robert surviving his fall. Reception Critical response The New Yorker singled out Basehart's performance for praise, saying that he "succeeds in conveying the notion that he is indeed sorely beset." The New York Times film critic, Bosley Crowther, praised the "gripping suspense, absorbing drama and stinging social comment in this film." Crowther said: "Fitly directed by Henry Hathaway in a crisp journalistic style and played to the hilt down to its 'bit' parts, it makes a show of accelerating power." Crowther praised Basehart's "startling and poignant" performance, and said that Douglas "takes the honors as the good-natured cop who finds all his modest resources of intelligence and patience taxed by this queer case." He also praised Da Silva, Moorehead, and the other supporting players for bringing "personality and credibility to this superior American film." Time Out Film Guide said that this "vertiginous melodrama recounts the event in professional low-key journalistic fashion." Comparing the movie to the film noir Ace in the Hole, Time Out observed that "the emphasis is as much on the reaction of bystanders as on the plight of the would-be suicide." Accolades The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction (Lyle R. Wheeler, Leland Fuller, Thomas Little, Fred J. Rode). Fourteen Hours was listed as among the top-10 motion pictures of 1951 by the National