Fourteen Hours (1951)

On St. Patrick's Day in New York City, an early twenty-something John Doe is a proverbial jumper in being out on the ledge of the fifteenth floor of the Rodney Hotel. The first two on the scene are one of the hotel's room service waiters who was in the room when he noticed the man had climbed on the ledge without his knowledge, and Charlie Dunnigan, an NYPD traffic cop who could see the young man on the ledge from his position on the street. Dunnigan decides to try to speak to the John Doe to find out his story and prevent him from jumping, until those on the force with experience on such matters arrive to take over. With the John Doe seemingly suspect of authority, he will speak to straight, plain-talking Dunnigan and only him. As the authorities try to do their work, which for Dunnigan's superiors means getting the John Doe off the ledge safely with or without his consent and to find out who he is so that they have information for Dunnigan to push the right buttons with him, a large crowd convenes below, many whose own lives go on but are affected by this stranger potentially ending his life. Meanwhile, as the front line of defense, Dunnigan must balance all the information coming at him, from the John Doe himself, the experts associated to the first-responding authorities, and the people the police discover are his "loved ones", all while trying to determine if there is one triggering event that ultimately made the John Doe decide to go out on the ledge.