Deadline at Dawn (1946)

I love this movie so much

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

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.

A young sailor on leave wakes up at midnight in a newsstand with bundles of money in his pockets and no recollection of his time spent with the wrong woman. Of course she turns out to be dead and he has until a bus leaves at 6am to discover the culprit or he gets the rap.I like films with concentrated wandering, this one has it, the entire film like a slow ride across New York after hours in the backseat of a cab with windows rolled down, it's the middle of August, the macadam breathing out the day's heat again, or like lounging by the open window of your apartment with lights turned off, glimpses of strange figures stalking the empty and sweltering streets below and imagining mischief from them.It has mood above all, latenight paranoia being sweated out from pores in the skin. Everything looks a bit unhinged in that magic-desolate way that is summer in the big city.But this is deeply noirish in a key way, the way of the dumb guy's dream that crystallizes the essence of noir. Our man was out at night dreaming but has no recollection what about, except it involved offers of sex and illicit money. We presume he's innocent because of his naive blond looks and because he's the one telling the story, and is bewildered as he does, because more likely suspects are paraded, stories are piled, testimonies, conjecture, a drunk man uncovers hidden truth, a cab driver reflects about love, but the puzzle persists, the puzzle that is the night of life; we cannot really know, there is a blank spot at the center. Emptiness behind the stories that we make up to narrate our private worlds.You will need no more eloquent parallel about what this is all about than a blind pianist among the suspects and being - mistakenly - sussed from his melodramatic reaction.So we have sinister happenings back in the waking world, itself rendered as something you wake up from. Then our film as a dream attempting inner balance, so of course thick in coincidence, in strange but kind souls assisting, capped off with a miraculous revelation in the end that absolves guilt.This is truly wonderful stuff that has burned itself into my visual imagination. It's clean and dark both, the shadows all in having traveled, having dreamed the night away.

In many films, the viewer needs to suspend disbelief to appreciate the story. I can do that. However, when you need to suspend disbelief AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN, this stretches an individual's suspension way beyond the breaking point--and the film becomes ridiculous. This is the best way I know of describing "Deadline at Dawn"--a sloppily written film that you want to like but cannot.The story begins with a guy coming to his ex-wife's apartment. She (Lola Lane) is stinking drunk and he is angry because she was supposed to give him $1400 but it's gone. In the next scene, she's dead--and you assume he'd killed her.The scene switches to a very naive but likable young sailor (Bill Williams). He's awaking from a bit of a hangover and has to catch a bus to the naval base at Norfolk in the morning--what's he going to do in the hours until then? So, he goes to a dance hall and meets a world-weary lady (Susan Hayward). Despite being VERY hard-edged, she takes a liking to the guy and invites him home. After talking a bit, you learn that a huckster and his sister (Lane) had taken advantage of him--so he stormed out of her apartment. She owed him money, he was mad and a bit drunk, so he just grabbed a pile of cash and left. Now he realizes it's $1400--and he is too honest to keep it. So, he convinces Hayward to follow him to the lady's apartment so he can return the money. This is a very contrived situation, I know...it gets worse.At the apartment, Williams finds the lady dead. So what does Hayward do with this man she just me?! Yes, neither one contacts the police and she decides to help him investigate the crime. Investigating the crime themselves is a popular cliché of the time, but why would a jaded Hayward get involved?! What happens next? Well, it gets even more unbelievable and soon they have some new friends they JUST MET who team up with them to investigate--and NONE of them think to call the cops!! More happens--and a ridiculous ending that comes from out of no where--all which had me think that the screenwriter was perhaps drunk--just like Williams. The bottom line is that none of this makes the least bit sense but the actors do try. I was very impressed by Hayward but really impressed by Williams--an unknown actor who more than held his own throughout the film. But these performances never come close to making you forget just how 3rd-rate the script is. I clear misfire--and annoyingly so.

The biggest thing that Deadline At Dawn has going for it is the snappy dialog by one of the best word-smith's around at the time in Clifford Odets. It really crackles, especially what comes from Susan Hayward's mouth. What prevents it from being top rated noir is the rather unbelievable character of Bill Williams, the green kid sailor from Poughkeepsie.Williams gets himself too much of a snootful of booze and ends up in Lola Lane's apartment with her quite dead. She asked him to 'fix her radio' just like guys ask women to 'see their etchings'. He also has $1400.00 in cash in his pocket and hasn't a clue how that got there either because he was in a poker game with Lane's brother Joseph Calleia, a most crooked gambler.Fortunately for Williams he meets up with a cynical Susan Hayward who sees something in Williams, a naiveté she's not used to in the big city. She helps him investigate Lane's murder and before the cops are called in, they've got an interesting assortment of suspects.The Deadline At Dawn refers to the fact that poor Williams has to get back to his ship by dawn else he be declared AWOL. At times that seemed to worry him more than the fact he's in a nice little jackpot.Deadline At Dawn has a great cast and some great writing. But try as I might I couldn't get convinced about the character of Williams. Nobody could be that naive.