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| Bill Williams and Susan Hayward in Deadline at Dawn |
Cast: Bill Williams, Susan Hayward, Paul Lukas, Joseph Calleia, Osa Massen, Lola Lane, Jerome Cowan, Marvin Miller, Roman Bohnen, Steven Geray, Joe Sawyer, Constance Worth, Joseph Crehan. Screenplay: Clifford Odets, based on a novel by Cornell Woolrich. Cinematography: Nicholas Musuraca. Art direction: Albert S. D'Agostino, Jack Okey. Film editing: Roland Gross. Music: Hanns Eisler.
In Harold Clurman's Deadline at Dawn, screenwriter Clifford Odets takes a familiar thriller premise -- a guy wakes up after a blackout bender with a dead woman and can't prove that he didn't kill her -- and almost talks it to death. The guy is a sailor on shore leave, Alex Winkler (Bill Williams), and in his effort to determine whether he killed Edna Bartelli (Lola Lane), he gains the help of a taxi dancer, June Goffe (Susan Hayward), and a taxi driver, Gus Hoffman (Paul Lukas). The result is a head-spinning series of encounters with various unsavory types leading to a conclusion that will be surprising only if you haven't learned to suspect everyone in a whodunit. This was celebrated stage director Clurman's only film and he makes it more theatrical than it should be, largely with the help of Odets, who was also a playwright in love with florid dialogue. So we get lines like "If you hear a peculiar noise, it's my skin creeping" and "People with wax heads should keep out of the sun." Fortunately, Odets doesn't give any of these screwy lines to his protagonist, Alex, so we like him all the more for his simplicity. None of Deadline at Dawn makes very much sense, but that's what's entertaining about it.
