Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

It all seems a little antique now -- newspapers and the power they wielded. It's probably difficult for anyone growing up now to grasp the fact that the radio and newspapers were virtually the only sources of news available to most people. For a few cents you could buy a paper that not only presented you with current events but a crossword puzzle, the race results, tomorrow's weather, a political cartoon, an editorial about the latest geopolitical crisis or about the disrepair of the local sewer system, the exact times of sunrise and sunset, the names of ships entering the harbor, your horoscope, Lala Divoon being seen at 21 with handsome young Lance Aryan, and finally you could keep track of Dick Tracy and find out of Lil Abner got Mammy Yokum out of Dogpatch. So the significance of The Day in the daily life of ordinary people is hard to figure in an age when television itself is being replaced by the internet as a prime source of information."It takes talent to get the news, write it up, and back it up with research," editor Bogart tells the suits that control the money. "Back it up with research." Those were the days. Now any idiot can get on social media and print a rant about the hollow earth hypothesis and he can depend on certain of those among us to gobble it up. But the business that Bogart describes has its weaknesses too. The news may offend powerful gang figures like Rienzi (Martin Gabel) who owns judges and other high-echelon bureaucrats and can cause a lot of trouble, say, by murdering some of the paper's informants. ("I tole you I din't want no violence -- not yet anyways!") Gabel's slapping Bogart across the face with a copy of The Day is small potatoes. Gabel has an egregious tendency to throw his corpses into the Hudson River clothed in nothing but a mink coat, or seeing to it that they tumble down into some kind of garbage disposal unit or horizontal milling machine in the press room.All of this michigas irritates Bogart because at the same time he's coping with the mafia he's trying to save The Day from being acquired and disposed of by the competition. Also pressing on him is the fact that his wife, the infinitely appealing Kim Hunter, has divorced him and is about to marry her boss, an unworthy snooty dude wearing a permanent smirk of triumph. The drama is alloyed with some comedic moments -- exchanges between Bogart and his elderly secretary, Miss Barndollar, who is compliant to a fault and entirely literal. And there are occasional wisecracks. Some goons posing as cops kill an informant. When the police show up, a detective snarls at one of the paper's editors, "Can't you tell a hoodlum from a real cop?" "In THIS town? (pause) Yes, sir." Despite the most strenuous efforts of Bogart and his ally Ethel Barrymore, The Day comes to an end, but it's spirit lives on, inspired by a brave old immigrant lady who provides the evidence that sinks Rienzi. The brave old immigrant lady, here known by the cognomen of Mrs. Schmidt, is played by Kasia Orzazewski, born in Poland, who was Richard Conte's floor-scrubbing mother in "Call Northside 777." It's the kind of role any normal human being would want. You need an old immigrant lady? You call Kasia Orzazewski's agent. She didn't make that many movies -- a half dozen or so -- but for a couple of years she was the go-to brave old immigrant lady. She gets to provide the final encomium to the free press.This cast, by the way, includes myriad supporting actors of note at the time, too many to list here. They play it in the classic style, delivering the goods like UPS drivers. The direction by Richard Brooks is the same, flawless, without inspiration, and politically correct in a reassuring way that makes one yearn for the years of confidence, faith, fortitude, and Mammy Yokum.

Newspaper editor Bogart, approached by a young graduate fresh out of journalism school, sizes the kid up. "So, ya wanna be a reporter, huh...?" He seems more than a bit bemused. "It ain't the world's OLDEST profession," he tells the kid: "But it is the BEST." Unfortunately, Bogart's paper is about to go under. "A free Press is like a free Life," he muses: "It's always in danger." Considering the gutless state of most of Today's Fourth Estate, it's not only in danger, it's all but dead and buried. In a fact-free society like this one, who needs a newspaper...? (That's a rhetorical question, by the way.) Oh, there are still a handful of newspapers capable of shaking up the Powers That Be, but the clock seems to be ticking ever so inevitably toward a time when all NEWS will be determined by Corporations. Listen closely and you can almost hear it: tick, tick, tick...

Ever since I heard a year ago that Deadline - U.S.A. was finally getting a DVD release I was thrilled, I set a reminder on my phone and pre-ordered; I couldn't wait to finally watch one of the Bogie films that had eluded me for years. Directed by Richard Brooks in 1952 and starring, along with Bogart, Ethel Barrymore, and Kim Hunter, Deadline - U.S.A. explores the quest an editor and a few reporters embark upon to save their newspaper. One of the more emotionally varied roles of Humphrey Bogart, Deadline - U.S.A. is a pure treat for fans of cinema.Ed Hutcheson (Humphrey Bogart) is a hardened editor who has devoted his life and his happiness to the New York Day, the daily paper that has consumed his life for years. When it is made public that the paper is going to be sold, many reporters flee looking for other work, some stick around trying to finish their current stories. At first, Hutcheson accepts incoming unemployment with trepidatious willfulness, thinking that he will finally be able to have a life and hopefully resume his marriage with his ex-wife, Nora (Kim Hunter). He seeks her out after a night of drinking through his woes over the paper's sale, only to find out that she will be marrying another. When one of his reporters is badly beaten, Hutcheson knows that there is more to a story he was pursuing than initially imagined. Hutcheson commits to uncovering the truth, and his small band of remaining reporters are just as determined. The troupe soon finds out that a gangster that has run the city for years is behind the beating and attempted suppression of Hutcheson and his team. A committed team of crusaders Hutcheson only has three issues left to solve the case and save the paper.Years of waiting for the DVD release of Deadline - U.S.A. was not for naught, as I would rank it among one of Bogart's best roles. He was as much a detective in this film as he was in The Big Sleep. The determination and drive Bogart embodied with this role was phenomenal, and a role that only Bogart could have fulfilled--he completely steals the show. Not only was Bogart just as much of a detective in this role as he is in his famous detective roles, but he was also more gangster. Such a wonderful tightrope walk between physically imposing and intellectually threatening, Bogart proves his acting mastery. The Humphrey Bogart Eyes moment happens when Bogart has dinner with his ex-wife, who he is still trying to convince to come back to him. Nora shares with him her desire to be "enough" for someone. She knows she will never be enough for Hutcheson because he is constantly consumed by the paper. The second time he is pulled away from their dinner to answer an urgent phone call is proof enough for Nora and she leaves the restaurant before he returns from his call. The look Bogart's eyes emote in the moment that he realizes he may have lost the last chance with his one true love is absolute perfection. Anyone that has ever suffered a broken heart knows that this Humphrey Bogart Eyes moment is a perfect illustration of the pain in his heart at that moment.

A really great movie for one of Bogart's last pictures. His character is hard-nosed, but low key, a man who doesn't feel the need to prove how tough he is. An excellent supporting cast includes such reliable actors as Paul Stewart, Ed Begley,and Jim Backus as newspaper staff, with Joe DeSantis as the weaselly crook in hiding. Ethel Barrymore is superb as the widow of the paper's founder, watching as her obnoxious daughters sell off the paper they care nothing about. Martin Gabel hits just the right note as mob boss Rienzi, smiling and affable one minute, snarling and growling threats seconds later.One of the best scenes has Rienzi pick up Bogart's editor Hutchinson off the street and offer him a drink in his luxurious limousine. Bogart asks half seriously if he's being ' taken for a ride', and Rienzi claims he's not a gangster. Moments later, Rienzi loses his temper and smacks Hutchinson in the face. Hutchinson smiles that crooked Bogart grin and says, " That's more like it", telling Rienzi he's showing his true colors at last. The would be respectable businessman is nothing more than a gangster, after all.This movie is both an antique, in the way it shows how big city dailies were still operating fifty years ago, and surprisingly up to date in its concern with how the public often doesn't really care about the news, and that a lot of what's packaged as news is just entertainment. Bogart's great speech at the hearing to determine the paper's future is a rouser, as he talks about the importance of a free press.This movie deserves a wider audience on home video than its occasional cable TV showings. It's a great Bogart vehicle, and a fascinating story of the newspaper business, and just a fine picture in general.