Directors: Harold Clurman, William Cameron Menzies (uncredited). Written by Clifford Odets (screenplay), based on Cornell Woolrich (as William Irish). Cinematography by Nicholas Musuraca, Music by Hanns Eisler.
The film stars Susan Hayward as taxi dancer June Goffe, Paul Lukas as the cabbie Gus Hoffman, Bill Williams as Seaman Alex Winkler, Joseph Calleia as gangster Val Bartelli, Osa Massen as Helen Robinson, Lola Lane as "V" girl Edna Bartelli, Jerome Cowan as a showbiz producer Lester Brady, Phil Warren as Jerry Robinson, Constance Worth as Nan Raymond and Marvin Miller as Sleepy Parsons.
Seen the film multiple times. Susan Hayward is pretty cute as a taxi dancer turned amateur sleuth. Though based on Woolrich's eponymous novel the film truncates the tale and adds extra characters.
The Film vs the Novel
Reread Cornell Woolrich's Deadline At Dawn recently. Rewatching the film as I type. The book is seriously, completely different from the film in its initial setup.
In the film the Hayward character June is a taxi dancer at a dump called "The Jungle" and the Williams character Alex is a sailor. The deadline in the film is a bus that he has to catch to get to Virginia Beach for Naval training. June gets a connection to Alex because her brother is a tail gunner in the war and she is from Virginia Beach.
The film streamlines the novel. In the film a blind man named Sleepy Parsons goes up a stairway to the apartment of his ex-wife Edna Bartelli to collect some money. When he gets to the door he knocks. No answer. He knocks again. Our first gander at Edna finds her asleep with a fly crawling across her face, a small prelude of things to come or is Edna the equivalent of a turd? You decide.
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| Edna Bartelli (Lola Lane) |
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| Sleepy Parsons (Marvin Miller) |
We cut to Alex. He's sort of recovering from a blackout He can't drink without having blackouts. He's sitting in a newsstand drinking coffee and talking to the owner. When Alex gets up to leave to cool off he takes out his handkerchief to wipe his brow, a wad of dough falls out of it to sidewalk. He barely remembers the last place he was at but he is determined to return the money to Edna.
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| Newspaper nest |
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| Seaman Alex Winkler (Bill Williams) |
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| Under an "el" |
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| The Jungle |
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| Ballroom |
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| June (Susan Hayward) |
They sort of click. He reminds June of her brother. June takes him to her flop for a sandwich. He tells June he's heading to Virginia Beach to report for duty. He tells June about the money. How he met Edna in an Italian Restaurant/clip joint where he lost all his money to Val, Edna's brother, playing casino.
When the place closes Edna asks Alex to come up and fix her radio. She'll pay him. While he's doing the fixing Edna's doing the flirting, and generally being "disgusting" according to Alex. Here again the code let's each of us imagine what "disgusting" is supposed to mean. He fixes the radio. Wants to get paid. He gets drunk. Edna passes out. Then he blacks out coming back to his senses at the newsstand.
June tells him that she will help him if he goes and visits her mother in Virginia Beach to say howdy. This all takes about 13 minutes of an hour and ten minute film. They take a taxi back to Edna's. Alex goes up with the money but he finds her dead. When June asks him if he did it he tells her he doesn't know.
On one particular job they did they had to add a new socket in a bathroom wall, while Quinn was cutting through the plaster and lath wall he hit the wooden backside of a safe embedded in the wall only the safe door and frame were of cast iron. Quinn also came into possession of the latch key for the house that accidentally fell into his tool box that he had placed near the small table near the foyer. Weeks go by and he forgets about the key.
When the old man died the shop he ran closed up and Quinn was going broke by the day. He remembered the latch key that he had forgotten about and the safe that would be easy picking. So he waited until the owner left the house, went in and broke through the back of the safe making away with about $2500 in cash. He's now feeling that everyone is watching him. He spends some of the money on food then decides to hide out in the taxi dance ballroom until it closes there he meets Bricky.
He basically confesses to Bricky who falls for him and then Bricky decides that the thing for them to do is to put the money back and catch the 6AM bus to Iowa. That is the deadline in the novel. Also throughout the novel Bricky keeps getting glimpses of the large clock atop the Paramount Building and it's hands moving ever closer to that 6AM deadline. When they get back to the townhouse to put the money back they find the owner shot dead. In the novel Bricky and Quinn act like detectives picking up various clues and following them. They figure out that there was a man and a woman in the room with the dead man and figure out that one of them must be the murderer.
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| She's dead |
Going back down to the street they begin to track a killer following various tips and clues and adding various characters making the film more of an ensemble effort. The film differs quite a bit now from the novel though still following the same general story outline though there never is any mention or shot of the clock on the Paramount Building. The film supplies convenient characters to speed up the story.
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| A New York stapel well into the 70s was Nedick's here changed to Resnick's |
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| A clue to where the woman went |
With only four hours to go before that 6AM deadline they split up to follow the leads Quinn after the man Bricky after the woman, agreeing to rendezvous back at the town house. The novel details the various trails they follow and some of the leads are quite interesting.
For instance in the novel the Bricky character traces a cab taken by a woman to a street corner in lower Manhattan from there she goes into an all night bakery to ask if a blonde woman came in. They tell her that one that lives just down the block did and bought some fresh bread. Bricky starts checking the buildings on the block looking for traces of flour on the door handles and mail boxes.
In the novel the Quinn character follows a dead end lead of a nervous man to a hospital where he discovers he's been following an expectant father. The whole novel pretty much, is Quinn and Bricky vs Manhattan and a bus departure deadline with just minor characters.
The film short cuts all the above by having a building super and his wife sitting on a stoop tell Jane exactly where the woman lives.
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| Helen Robinson (Osa Massen) |
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| Jerry Robinson (Phil Warren) |
While the wild goose chase that Quinn takes to a hospital waiting room is switched to a cab chase following a nervous man with a sick cat to a pet store. We also are introduced to a slew of characters. Back at Edna's, a friendly cabbie Gus Hoffman, helps the two on their search for the killer. He's like both a dime store philosopher and deus ex machina. His role is even more ludicrous when you get to the final twist.
Noirsville
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| Val Bartelli (Joseph Calleia) |
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| Gus Hoffman (Paul Lukas) |
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| Lester Brady (Jerome Cowan) |
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| "If she'd cut off her head she'd be very pretty." |
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| Constance Worth as Nan Raymond |
Anyway, I suspect a lot of MPPC finageling because the film could have taken equally a different track quite easily. Either one by the way different from the novel. Joseph Calleia as the gangster is a hoot especially when he gives the header quote. The film also lacks any real New York City location footage, it's all studio sets. 7/10
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