Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film noir Deadline at Dawn.
DVD Review
Deadline at Dawn, starring Susan Hayward, Bill
Williams, Paul Lukas, Warner Brothers, 1948,
Sure, everybody knows there are eight million, more or less, stories in the Naked City. Yah, the Big Apple, New Jack City, hell, you know New York City. At least everybody should know since we are beaten over the head with that hard fact every day, every day somebody wants to discuss crime, welfare fraud, the immigration problem, the national debt or whatever else they think they can fob off on a big city that can’t defend itself, or at least has to plead guilty as charged. Now not all the stories going to back when the place first changed hands for a couple of beads from some crafty Dutchmen or now are worthy of note. Mostly the people behind those eight million, more or less, stories are just struggling to stay above water, just trying to get to and fro without getting mugged on the IRT, or worst just trying to hail a cab at rush hour or the early hours. Hey, most of them are leading, what was it called, yah, lives of quiet desperation just like the rest of us. Here’s a story though, a story with a murder in it, maybe uncommon in you burg but not so uncommon in the big city, ever, and a story about how ordinary guys and dolls, ordinary guys and dolls though who had gotten themselves through World War II, take care of their own business when the deal goes down.
Some guys are born fall guys, some guys grow into the role and our sailor boy Alex (played by Bill Williams a good choice with that angelic mom’s boy and apple pie face) is one of them. Alex, who saw more than enough of service during the war, is a prime example of that golly-gee American manhood who nevertheless helped put paid to the likes of Hitler, Tojo and Il Duce when they needed stopping. But still naïve, big city golly gee naïve, and in the Naked City that spells only one thing-patsy, fall guy, mark, or whatever you call it out your way. So our lonely guy on furlong gets taken for a ride, or is set up for it. Naturally it involves a woman, Lisa, a woman of the night to be kind, just in case there are some gentle souls in the audience. A woman who as her protective nefarious “connected” brother said, thinks like a man. And thinking like a man for a woman, a New York City woman of the night (and not just New York City either), is the oldest gag in book. Get guys, especially married guys, to tumble, get them to tumble hard, get them asking for more and then, boom, a threat of quick call or note to wifey and then just wait for the pay off. Nice. A nice racket if you don’t get too greedy, or get a wrong gee working against you.
And there, as is the case with any film not just film noir, or most any film, even those centered in the Naked City, that involves boy meets girl he finds her. Her being one tired dime-a-dance girl June (played by a. how can I put it, oh, fetching, very fetching, Susan Hayward) who has been in the big city for long enough to know that dreaming about the bright lights of the great white way ain’t all it’s cracked up to be back down in Podunk (which by coincidence just happens to be Norfolk). Maybe she had dreams of being a dancer, a chorine, or some big theater actress, maybe working a few songs in some intimate café society bistro. Or, maybe, she was just looking for a sugar daddy and the line filled with fetching girls looking for sugar daddies was long that season in the city but there she was, jaded or half-jaded, wearing out her toes with any guy who had a fistful of tickets. And our boy Alex did.
So boy meets girl, ho hum, we have seen that theme worked about five million ways in about six million books and about seven million films. But wait a minute Alex has to get the dough back to Lisa, June is about to get off work off, and well, maybe there is a little, little spark between the two. Alex somehow persuades June to go with him to take back the dough. See, rube that he is his scared. So they hail a cab (good luck in real New York at that hour, right) and are off to do the right thing. Oh, I mentioned murder before and there is one that has been committed, murder most foul, since Alex last left Lisa’s place. And guess who is set to take the fall for that dastardly deed, to step off for it up in Sing Sing. Yah, that ‘s right.
Now here is where the ordinary citizen (ordinary citizens who had trudged through the war remember) taking care of business part comes in courtesy of the screenplay-writing Clifford Odets (of Waiting For Lefty fame and red scare cold war fink infamy) known for such common touch efforts. In film noir, and in life, solving big time crimes like murder can’t be left to the cops, no way. They, the cops, are good for writing up traffic tickets and telling drivers to move on, maybe collaring you for some tickets to some police charity, cadging some coffee and crullers, and, maybe coming in at the end to brace the bad guys but to solve a murder when your neck is on the line, no, no. Even Podunk Alex knows that and so the pair decided not to tell the police about Lisa’s untimely demise and furthermore they decide that if Alex is to keep on the square that they had better solve this crime themselves. And do it by that deadline mentioned before.
And they do. They do solve it as any self-respecting film noir fan knows because, in the end, the motif of noir is that crime does not pay. For those who actually commit a crime. Now how they solve this thing, which has more false leads and red herrings (oops, I better not use that color where Brother Odets is concerned), herrings, than you can shake a stick at I will leave to your viewing. But along the way you will get plenty of cabbie street philosophy of life, plenty of common stuff about how the lower half lives and about the glass being half full not half empty. Yes, there are eight million stories, more or less, in the Naked City and this is one of the quirkiest ones
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