In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Terrifically gritty noir. Susan, still a B actress at the time took a big step forward with this little gem, one of the great overlooked noirs. She's tough and no nonsense but caring. She also looks phenomenal considering she had given birth to twin boys just before making this. Bill Williams is just right as the naive gob and Paul Lukas adds great support as a cabbie who lends a helping hand. The film is also full of wonderful touches, Susan's snappy no-nonsense talk, the incidental characters the leads come across and the sets and set-ups of the shots with intriguing little details just randomly placed in the background. Well worth seeking out.

Cornell Woolrich's "Deadline at Dawn" first saw the light of day as "Of Time and Murder" in a 1941 edition of Detective Fiction Weekly but cried out for an expansion treatment. In 1943 as "The Clock on the Paramount" it was re-submitted and published under the psuedonym of William Irish. Aside from Woolrich, the movie also bought in Clifford Odet's who wrote the screenplay and I, also, love the quirky and philosopical dialogue the characters utter. The film also captures the desperation and sometimes hopelessness of New York night people. None more so than June ("call me June, it rhymes with moon"). Susan Hayward's character was called "Bricky" in the original story, a more fitting name considering Susan Hayward's red hair!!June, a taxi dancer, has a dream to go home to her hometown of Norfolk, Virginia - she feels the city is keeping her a prisoner and she isn't strong enough to break it's grip. When she finds out that Alex (Bill Williams), a young sailor who she meets on the dance floor is going to meet his ship in Norfolk, she feels a special bond with him. In the book - in a Woolrich coincidence, they find they both come from the same town and both of them make a pact that, together, they should be strong enough to break the city's bonds. They give each other till dawn to solve the murder and then they can catch the train for a new life. The movie, with a wartime setting, doesn't have time for deeper feelings - Alex's train leaves at 6 a.m. and after that - who knows!! but June still has to help Alex clear himself of murder. Before he meets up with June, through a series of circumstances he awakes to find he has $1400 in his pocket. When he returns with June to Edna's (Lola Lane) apartment they find she has been murdered.The first scene is chilling, a woman appears to be dead, a fly crawls over her face, but then her eyes flicker - she is only asleep. It is Edna and she has just had a visit from her ex- husband (Marvin Miller), a blind pianist, who is angry because she hasn't got the $1400 she promised him. As well as being a prostitute, she has also a lucrative blackmailing business and as the night wears on many people pop up who may have a motive for murder!!This is a superlative film with marvelously created atmosphere of dark alleys, cheap apartments and lonely diners. Paul Lucas, who won an Oscar the year before for his performance in "Watch on the Rhine", has a role that really took him out of his comfort zone as Gus, a deep thinking cab driver. He picks up Alex who is chasing a nervous man who is running away from the apartment block but when they find the man, he is frantically looking for a vet!!! Gus forces Alex to confide in him. With only a couple of sets the claustrophobic action is mainly confined to the dead woman's apartment. Other people wander into the film, Edna's gangster brother (Joseph Calleia), a young couple who are having problems with the wife not telling her husband where she has gone on that particular night.Susan Hayward, spirited and vulnerable but looking like a million at the same time had just returned to the movies after giving birth to twins!!!

Harold Clurman directs this screenplay by the acclaimed Clifford Odets. This story finds a young sailor, Alex(Bill Williams), trying to salvage the last few hours of his leave. His head is still spinning after recovering from an alcohol induced blackout with a big chuck of money in his pocket belonging to Edna Bartelli(Lola Lane), who invited him to her apartment to fix her radio. Alex returns to the woman's apartment to return the money and finds her dead. Believing Alex could not be a murderer, a very tired taxi-dancer June Goth(Susan Hayward), reluctantly decides to help the somewhat naive sailor find Edna's true killer. Alex and June only have a few hours before dawn to correct this situation before his leave expires. There are more insignificant characters than clues; I'm happy the killer is not so obvious. And it is always fun to root for a guy like Alex. Other players: Paul Lukas, Jerome Cowman, Marvin Miller, Joseph Calleia, Steven Geray and Joe Sawyer.

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.