Two O'Clock Courage (1945)

Very disappointing...

i must have seen a different film!!

best movie i've ever seen.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Ann Rutherford spent most of her MGM years being Polly Benedict, Andy Hardy's biggest fan. In most of the Andy Hardy movies she usually had to take a back seat to up and coming actresses such as Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Esther Williams etc, but by the end the humbled Andy would always be back in her arms. Obviously, she tired of these and couldn't wait to leave MGM. She hoped free lancing would give her more adult roles but it wasn't to be. She just had a very bubbly personality and her part as Patty, the perky taxi driver who helps amnesia victim Tom Conway was exactly the type of role she did best. Directed by Anthony Mann and with a screenplay by Gelett Burgess, noted American humorist and inventor of the "blurb", "Two O'Clock Courage" starred Tom Conway, in between his Falcon assignments, as a nameless amnesia victim who may just be mixed up in the murder of a Broadway producer. He is encouraged to find out the truth by Patty, the bubbly taxi driver, who almost runs him over. There are more laughs than drama with Richard Lane as a bumbling newspaper reporter. Conway finds out he is really Theodore Allison, who has been hired by the mother of Laurence Kenny, author of the play "Two O'Clock Courage" to find out what happened to it. The play has been plaguerized by the producer and retitled "Menace" where said producer has been pocketing all the royalties.This movie was also the debut of Bettejane Greer, soon to be known as Jane Greer - she had the role of Helen a sulky nightclub girl and she certainly made a splash with her limited screen time. Jean Brooks proved again that she was an attractive actress who should have been more well known. She certainly was more stunning as a brunette ("The Seventh Victim"). Unfortunately she was almost at the end of her brief career as RKO's "resident neurotic of the Bs" according to Doug McClelland.

Catch that noirish opening—Ted (Conway) wandering around in the fog with an even bigger fog inside his head, not knowing who he is or where he came from. Good thing girl cabbie (it's still war time) Patty (Rutherford) helps him out since the cops think he's murdered someone. These look like classic elements of noir, especially with master of the genre Anthony Mann in charge. But this is early in his career when he was still doing programmers.There may be some interest here for film historians since the movie appears to straddle two genres— the humorous murder mysteries of the 30"s and early 40's and the emerging noir crime dramas of the post-war period. Note how Mann uses a noirish close-up to dramatize Ted's recovering memory. Looks like his darker artistic side is looking for opportunities to surface.Still, thick-headed cop (Parnell) and fast-talking reporter (Lane) remain anchored in Charlie Chan's and Falcon's of the earlier period. But however you cut it, the movie's still a fun diversion, with a bouncy Rutherford, a polished Conway, and a pay-me-by-the-word Lane. Just don't try to figure out the mystery. I lost track somewhere between the butler-did-it and the gorgeous Jane Greer's revealing gowns.

Tom Conway and Ann Rutherford star in "Two O'Clock Courage," a 1945 film. Rutherford plays Patty, a taxicab driver who picks up an injured man (Conway) with amnesia. She attempts to help him, and the two are drawn into the murder of a producer. Her fare may or may not have had something to do with it.This film is more of a mystery/comedy, done with a light touch and a perky Ann Rutherford. She's pretty and bubbly, perhaps a little too much at the beginning of the film. Conway, who somehow, despite a similar voice, never had his brother George Sanders' smoothness, is good as a confused man trying to fake his way through a situation where he doesn't even know his own name."Two O'Clock Courage" has plenty of suspects and twists and goes on just a little longer than it needs to, but it's still a fun watch.

Basically a light-hearted mystery programmer in the style of the 1940s, Two O'Clock Courage claims attention by virtue of having been directed by Anthony Mann, before his legendary collaboration in film noir with cinematographer John Alton. It also happens to be a pretty good movie, of its limited type, in its own right.It opens at the fog-shrouded intersection of Ocean View Drive and Arch Street where Tom Conway, looking and sounding eerily like his more successful brother George Sanders, bleeds from a head wound and can't remember who he is. Skidding to his rescue in a taxi comes game hack Ann Rutherford (a sister under the visor to On The Town's Brunnhilde Esterhazy), who becomes his sidekick even though it turns out he may be mixed up in a high-profile murder. Trying to establish his identity and what he might have done (or not done), the pair travel through a theatrical/nightlife milieu; the mystery concerns a plagiarized play written by a dead man, which shares its title with this movie.There are the staple characters of the sub-genre: the befuddled butler, the snoopy landlady, the apoplectic editor. There's also, as a society floozy, young Jane Greer (billed here as `Bettejane'). Two O'Clock Courage doesn't show much of the flair Mann would later bring to suspense, even, the following year, to Strange Impersonation. But he keeps his eye on the ball, and never lets the unraveling of the mystery take a back seat too long to the farcical episodes (which mercifully he keeps from growing too extended or too broad). All in all, it's a more satisfying effort than similar and better-known efforts from around the same time, like A Night to Remember or Lady on a Train.