Deadline at Dawn (1946)

Good concept, poorly executed.

Absolutely Brilliant!

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

DEADLINE AT DAWN is a low budget attempt by RKO Pictures to cash in on the popular film noir genre, featuring a 'wronged man' style plot line that Hitchcock himself would be proud of. The tale begins with a wealthy woman murdered; when a sailor wakes from a drunken stupor with her money and no recollection of preceding events, he thinks he's responsible.He joins up with a pretty dancer and together the pair must solve the murder by dawn. Over the course of a single night they come into contact with many bizarre and off-beat characters, most of whom are fond of spouting some amusing dialogue; the script is definitely the best thing about this.The performances are also pretty decent, with Susan Hayward particularly excelling as the investigative heroine. Bill Williams is likable as the hard-headed sailor, but the real scene stealer is Paul Lukas as the friendly taxi driver who assists the couple in their investigations. The triple twist ending has to be seen to be believed.

Bill Williams plays Alex Winkley, a sailor on leave who awakens from a drunken blackout to find a large sum of money on his person, which he believes belongs to a young woman named Edna(played by Lola Lane) whom he had helped the night before. Sadly, he finds her dead, and is unsure if he's guilty or not, but is helped by a dance hall girl(played by Susan Hayward) and a friendly taxi driver(played by Paul Lukas) to solve the mystery, which has many suspects, and he only has four more hours until he has to report back to his ship, or be AWOL. OK film noir has likable performances which compensate for the complicated mystery which ends up having a semi-surprising resolution.

I've been waiting for years to catch this and it's well worth waiting for. Working from a Cornell Woollrich/William Irish story Clifford Odets adds his own brilliant spin via the kind of dialog that only he could write (see Sweet Smell Of Success) and write as though he found it lying on the sidewalk in Manhattan. Harold Clurman - who worked with Odets and Roman Bohnen in the Group Theater - directs his only film and it's a pip. Clurman, who was writing the history of the Group (The Fervent Years) at the time displays the kind of flair that would have given fellow Group alumnus Elia Kazan a run for his money had he pursued a career in movies. The movie is studded with both atmosphere, offbeat characters and that dialog. Marvin Miller, Joesph Calleia, Paul Lukas and Susan Hayward make this one to remember.

Harold Clurman directs this screenplay by the acclaimed Clifford Odets. This story finds a young sailor, Alex(Bill Williams), trying to salvage the last few hours of his leave. His head is still spinning after recovering from an alcohol induced blackout with a big chuck of money in his pocket belonging to Edna Bartelli(Lola Lane), who invited him to her apartment to fix her radio. Alex returns to the woman's apartment to return the money and finds her dead. Believing Alex could not be a murderer, a very tired taxi-dancer June Goth(Susan Hayward), reluctantly decides to help the somewhat naive sailor find Edna's true killer. Alex and June only have a few hours before dawn to correct this situation before his leave expires. There are more insignificant characters than clues; I'm happy the killer is not so obvious. And it is always fun to root for a guy like Alex. Other players: Paul Lukas, Jerome Cowman, Marvin Miller, Joseph Calleia, Steven Geray and Joe Sawyer.