''Chicago Deadline'' is a 1949 American

film noir Film noir (; ) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American ' ...

crime film Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combi ...

directed by Lewis Allen and starring

Alan Ladd Alan Walbridge Ladd (September 3, 1913 – January 29, 1964) was an American actor and film producer. Ladd found success in film in the 1940s and early 1950s, particularly in films noir and Westerns. He was often paired with Veronica Lak ...

and

Donna Reed Donna Reed (born Donna Belle Mullenger; January 27, 1921 – January 14, 1986) was an American actress. Her career spanned more than 40 years, with performances in more than 40 films. She is well known for her portrayal of Mary Hatch Bailey in ...

. It was remade as ''

Fame Is the Name of the Game ''Fame Is the Name of the Game'' is a 1966 American made-for-television drama film starring Tony Franciosa that aired on NBC and served as the pilot episode of the subsequent series ''The Name of the Game''. It was directed by Stuart Rosenberg ...

'' (1966).

Plot

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

newspaper reporter Ed Adams is in a boarding house when the body of beautiful tenant Rosita Jean d'Ur is found. Ed takes her diary before the police arrive. The police give the cause of death as tubercular hemorrhage, but Ed suspects otherwise. Of the fifty-four names listed in her diary Ed talks to hoodlum Solly Wellman, trust company vice-president G. G. Temple, and Belle Dorset, all of whom deny knowing Rosita. Belle Dorset immediately moves home. At a party Ed meets alluring blonde Leona Purdy, who knew Rosita. Ed starts dating Leona. Ed believes Rosita was not promiscuous but was compassionate and mistreated. Ed's suspicions grow when both Wellman and Temple threaten him. Rosita's brother Tommy Ditman tells Ed his sister ran away aged seventeen from their home in Amarillo,

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

. Tommy tracked her down to San Francisco where she had fallen in love with artist Paul Jean d'Ur. They married and moved to New York, after which Tommy didn't see her much. Their marriage went bad, Paul died in a car accident, and Rosita became lonely and bitter and had difficulty keeping a job. Gangster Blacky Franchot arranges to meet Ed to talk about Rosita but is shot before Ed arrives. He says to Ed "I loved her" before he dies. Ed reports to the city editor, Gribbe, who writes a long column making Rosita's life and fate sound sensational and mysterious. Leona reveals that Rosita had been involved with Blacky, although she was frightened of his connections to gangster Wellman. She resisted the persistent advances of Temple. When Blacky was severely beaten they moved to the countryside together. When Blacky left her, Rosita returned to Chicago and started dating Temple. Ed accuses Temple of ordering Blacky's beating but Temple denies it. Interfering police detective Anstruder insists on accompanying Ed as he meets with invalid Hotspur Shaner, for whom Rosita worked as a housekeeper under an assumed name. The man who introduced them, John Spingler, is reported murdered, and Ed uses the distraction to get away from the police. Rosita's former maid, Hazel, tells Ed Rosita left Temple when he hit her a year before her death. Leaving Hazel's building, Ed is knocked unconscious by two of Wellman's thugs and awakens in a junkyard. Ed takes Leona to a boxing match featuring the last names listed in Rosita's diary: fighter Bat Bennett and his manager, Jerry Cavanaugh. Jerry reveals that Bat fell in love with and became distracted by Rosita. Jerry threatened to expose her to Wellman unless she ended the relationship. Rosita reluctantly agreed and disappeared. Temple is murdered, rumors say Wellman is responsible. Ed believes Temple financed Wellman's rackets. Belle tells Ed that Wellman had hired Spingler to get rid of Rosita. Belle denies knowing of Spingler's duplicity until reading of Rosita's death. Wellman shoots and wounds Ed before escaping. Belle reveals the missing link in Rosita's history: on the night of their argument, Temple admitted to Rosita, whom he was supporting, that he hired Wellman to get rid of Blacky. During the ensuing argument Temple struck Rosita down and panicked when she appeared dead. He called Wellman for help. Wellman corners Ed in a shootout in a parking garage and Ed kills Wellman. At Rosita's funeral, Ed tells Tommy what really happened to his sister, and then burns her diary in the funeral parlor's eternal flame.

Cast

as Ed Adams *

as Rosita Jean d'Ur *

June Havoc June Havoc (born Ellen Evangeline Hovick; November 8, 1912 – March 28, 2010) was a Canadian American actress, dancer, stage director and memoirist. Havoc was a child vaudeville performer under the tutelage of her mother Rose Thompson Hovick, ...

as Leona * Irene Hervey as Belle Dorset *

Arthur Kennedy John Arthur Kennedy (February 17, 1914January 5, 1990) was an American stage and film actor known for his versatility in supporting film roles and his ability to create "an exceptional honesty and naturalness on stage", especially in the origi ...

as Tommy Ditman * Berry Kroeger as Solly Wellman * Harold Vermilyea as Anstruder *

Shepperd Strudwick Shepperd Strudwick (September 22, 1907 – January 15, 1983) was an American actor of film, television, and stage. He was also billed as John Shepperd for some of his films and for his acting on stage in New York. Early years Strudwick was ...

as Blacky Frenchot * Dave Willock as Pig * Gavin Muir as G.G. Temple * John Beal as Paul Jean d'Ur * Tom Powers as Howard * Howard Freeman as Hotspur Shaner * Paul Lees as Bat * Margaret Field as Minerva * Harry Antrim as Gribbe *

Roy Roberts Roy Roberts (born Roy Barnes Jones, March 19, 1906 – May 28, 1975) was an American character actor. Over his more than 40-year career, he appeared in more than nine hundred productions on stage and screen. Life and career Born in Tamp ...

as Jerry Cavanaugh * Marietta Canty as Haze

Production

The novel ''One Woman'' was published in 1933. Paramount bought the film rights and announced the following year they would film it as ''Are Men Worth It?'' starring Lee Tracy and

Claudette Colbert Claudette Colbert ( ; born Émilie Claudette Chauchoin; September 13, 1903July 30, 1996) was an American actress. Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the late 1920s and progressed to films with the advent of talking pictur ...

. In 1935 the project was listed on Paramount's schedule with Colbert still attached.

Charles MacArthur Charles Gordon MacArthur (November 5, 1895 – April 21, 1956) was an American playwright, screenwriter and 1935 winner of the Academy Award for Best Story. Life and career MacArthur was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the sixth of seven chil ...

and

Ben Hecht Ben Hecht (; February 28, 1894 – April 18, 1964) was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist, and novelist. A successful journalist in his youth, he went on to write 35 books and some of the most enjoyed screenplay ...

were reportedly working on a script with Benjamin Glazer. No film resulted. However the success of ''

Laura Laura may refer to: People * Laura (given name) * Laura, the British code name for the World War I Belgian spy Marthe Cnockaert Places Australia * Laura, Queensland, a town on the Cape York Peninsula * Laura, South Australia * Laura Bay, a bay on ...

'' (1944) and '' The Big Clock'' (1948), which contained similar story elements to the novel, saw it put back into development as a vehicle for

. Robert Fellows was assigned the job of producing and Warren Duff given the job of writing the script.

had just appeared opposite Ladd in '' Beyond Glory''. She was borrowed from MGM again to play his co-star. Lewis Allen was assigned to direct. Filming started on July 29, 1948, on location in Chicago. The title was changed from ''One Woman'' to ''Chicago Deadline'' in November.

Reception

Box office

According to ''Variety'' the film was the 37th most popular movie in the US and Canada in 1949 earning $2.1 million. It earned $1.7 million the following year.

Critical response

When the film was released Stephen O. Saxe, writing for ''

The Harvard Crimson ''The Harvard Crimson'' is the student newspaper of Harvard University and was founded in 1873. Run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates, it served for many years as the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Beginning in the f ...

'', recommended the film due to the acting, the action and suspense. He wrote, "''Chicago Deadline'' is a picture with a Twist. It's not an O. Henry twist, either ...

he picture offers He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

a good plot with plenty of suspense, and, in due course, lots of action ... ''Chicago Deadline'' is not the sort of picture you'd go out of your way to see; but once inside, you won't walk out, either." Film critic

Bosley Crowther Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. (July 13, 1905 – March 7, 1981) was an American journalist, writer, and film critic for ''The New York Times'' for 27 years. His work helped shape the careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though his ...

dismissed

suspension of disbelief Suspension of disbelief, sometimes called willing suspension of disbelief, is the avoidance of critical thinking or logic in examining something unreal or impossible in reality, such as a work of speculative fiction, in order to believe it for ...

in his review, "People who picture reporters as dashing young fellows, all named 'Scoop,' whose lives are just rounds of excitement in what such people call the 'newspaper game' will find the ideal of their illusion in the newshawk Alan Ladd plays in Paramount's ''Chicago Deadline'' ... But for those other level-headed people whose knowledge of newspaper men—and, indeed, of life in general—is a little more sober and sane, this fancy will surely seem a mish-mosh of two-penny-fiction cliches, recklessly thrown together in an almost unfathomable plot. Flashbacks and narrative descriptions will fascinate them no more than will Mr. Ladd's ridiculous posturing as a brilliant newspaper man-sleuth." In his review of the film, Dennis Schwartz, compared the film to

Otto Preminger Otto Ludwig Preminger ( , ; 5 December 1905 – 23 April 1986) was an Austrian-American theatre and film director, film producer, and actor. He directed more than 35 feature films in a five-decade career after leaving the theatre. He first gai ...

's ''

'' (1944), "In a ''Laura'' type of minor film noir, director Lewis Allen fails to make his love sick hero who is mooning over a corpse into anything but a superhero figure ... The film failed to make his cop character as inviting as ''Laura'' made

Dana Andrews Carver Dana Andrews (January 1, 1909 – December 17, 1992) was an American film actor who became a major star in what is now known as film noir. A leading man during the 1940s, he continued acting in less prestigious roles and character parts ...

Adaptations

The story was adapted for radio on '' Screen Director's Playhouse'' in 1950 with

reprising his role.

Accolades

Nomination * Edgar Allan Poe Awards: Edgar, Best Motion Picture; shared with:

Tiffany Thayer Tiffany Ellsworth Thayer (March 1, 1902 – August 23, 1959) was an American actor, writer, and one of the founding members of the Fortean Society. Biography Born in Freeport, Illinois, Thayer quit school at age 15 and worked as an actor, repor ...

; 1950..

References

External links

* * * *
Review of film
at ''The New York Times''

at Noir of the Week

Streaming audio

''Chicago Deadline''
on Screen Director's Playhouse: March 24, 1950 {{DEFAULTSORT:Chicago Deadline 1949 films 1940s crime thriller films American crime thriller films American black-and-white films Film noir Films scored by Victor Young Films about journalists Films set in Chicago Paramount Pictures films 1940s American films