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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