The following essay is
Thrilling Days of Yesteryear’s
contribution
to the Journalism in Classic
Film Blogathon,
currently underway
this weekend (September 21-22) and hosted by Comet Over Hollywood and Lindsay’s Movie Musings.
For a
full list of the participating blogs and the classic “read all about it” movies
covered, click here.
(Warning: this review has spoilers.)
In the bustling newsroom offices of
The Day, a major metropolitan newspaper, managing editor Ed
Hutcheson (Humphrey Bogart) is sandbagged by an AP wire report announcing that
the paper is going to be sold to a competing tabloid by the heirs of
The Day’s founder, John
Garrison.
Hutcheson attends a meeting in
an upstairs conference room and finds the story confirmed by Garrison’s widow Margaret
(Ethel Barrymore) and her daughters Alice (Fay Baker) and Katherine (Joyce
Mackenzie).
Despite the news, Ed still
has a paper to get out; investigative reporter George Burrows (Warren Stevens)
wants to continue probing the affairs of racketeer Tomas Rienzi (Martin Gabel),
who’s been on the hot seat of late testifying before a state senate
committee.
Ed is positive that if the
committee hasn’t uncovered anything, neither will
The Day; Burrows assures him he’s got a hot lead, and is
given an extra three days on the story.
 |
| I don't know the actor playing the man tending bar but Deadline - U.S.A. shows off its acting talent in this photo with (l-r) Jim Backus, Paul Stewart, Bogie, Dabbs Greer and Barton Yarborough. |
The newspaper’s staff holds a “wake” at a local watering
hole that evening in observance of the paper’s demise, and afterwards a drunken
Hutcheson finds his way to the apartment of his ex-wife Nora (Kim Hunter).
Ed tells her about the paper’s impending sale
and promises her that if they get back together things will be different
between the two of them.
The next
morning, Ed gets a call from the paper—Burrows has suffered a beating at the
hands of some of Rienzi’s goons, and will have to be hospitalized…possibly even
losing an eye.
This prompts Hutcheson to
step up the paper’s investigation into the gangster’s activities, pulling out
all the stops with a hard-hitting Page One editorial and cartoons to accompany
it.
Ed’s gamble is that with the
spotlight shining on Rienzi, it might just be the solution to keep the paper
from being sold.
When the Rienzi story is published, the subject of the
article is naturally none too pleased and informs his lawyer that he wants
pressure put to bear on Hutcheson.
Ed
has problems of his own, however; his attempts to reconcile with Nora are not
going as well as he’d like (she announces that she’s engaged to be remarried),
and a breaking story about a dead woman found drowned and wearing nothing but a
mink is spiked by Fenway (Thomas Browne Henry), the advertising manager.
Questioning Fenway, Hutcheson and city desk
editor Frank Allen (Ed Begley) learn that the story has been scotched because
Andrew Wharton (Tom Powers), one of the paper’s major advertisers, is concerned
about the gossip that will get out when readers learn that the dead woman, one
Sally Gardner (real name: Bessie Schmidt), was once his mistress.
Wharton helpfully informs Hutcheson that Sally was
blackmailing him…but stopped when she hooked up with none other than Tomas
Rienzi.
Jim Cleary (Jim Backus) and
sports editor Harry Thompson (Paul Stewart) are assigned to dig up the dirt;
Cleary finds the evidence that connects Sally to the gangster, but Thompson
locates her brother Herman (Joe De Santis) in a dingy apartment and convinces
him to talk to
The Day before
Rienzi gets to him.
Meanwhile, at a
court hearing that will approve the sale of
The
Day, Margaret has second thoughts about signing off on the deal, much
to her daughters’ disgust.
Outnumbered
two to one, Margaret’s only course of action is to offer to purchase the paper
herself…and the judge decrees that he’ll need time to consider her request.
Outside the courthouse, Ed is taken for a “ride” in Rienzi’s
car for a little chat; Rienzi makes every attempt to persuade Hutcheson to drop
his crusade, but Ed holds firm, and the editor is deposited at the front steps
of The Day just in time for
Rienzi to see Herman walking in with Thompson.
A Q-and-A session with Ed and Frank reveals that brother Herman was the
one who fingered where his sister was hiding and was also with Rienzi when the
mobster’s thugs rubbed her out. Schmidt,
promised $1,000 for his story, is encouraged to take it on the lam…but a group
of “cops” show up to collect the stoolie before he’s finished signing a
statement as to what he witnessed. The
policemen are the same Rienzi goons who killed his sister, and after a scuffle,
Herman meets a violent end when he falls into one of the paper’s printing
presses.
With no statement from the dead man and a libel suit
threatened by Rienzi, the judge’s decision comes down: the contract is valid
and the sale of
The Day will
continue, despite Hutcheson’s last-ditch attempt to convince the presiding
judge of the paper’s importance and how “without competition, there can be no
freedom of the press.”
Reporting back to
Allen that the paper has been officially sold, Ed learns that the mother (Kasia
Orzazewski) of the dead girl wants to speak to him—she has in her possession $200,000
of Renzi’s money and a diary kept by her daughter that will convict the mobster
of complicity in her death.
The Day,
though still being sold, scores a pyrrhic victory at the film’s end when Rienzi
telephones Ed and, against the advice of his attorney, once again threatens him
not to print the story in the paper’s final edition.
The printing presses start up, drowning out
the conversation between the two men.
“That’s the press, baby…the press,” gloats Hutcheson to Rienzi.
“And there’s nothing you can do about it!”
Esquire
political blogger Charles P. Pierce composed
a
post back in August of 2012 naming his three favorite “newspaper” movies—and
encouraged his readership faithful to do the same.
We differ on our choices for number one
(Charlie went with
His Girl Friday,
I personally prefer
Ace in the Hole)
but our number-two choice was
Deadline –
U.S.A. (1952).
The movie, released
to theaters in March of 1952, has since ended up on a lot of favorites lists…truth
be told, I myself might move it up to the top spot depending on what day of the
week you ask.
I’m a big fan of
Deadline
because it approaches the subject of journalism and newspapers with a healthy
mix of both idealism and cynicism.
The
cynical portion of the film rings true today: viewers will have no problem
identifying with the central plot, in which a once-great newspaper is on its
deathbed, scheduled to be sacrificed to its tabloid-like competitor.
A certain Australian media mogul (Okay, it’s
Rupert Murdoch—just don’t say his name three times in succession in front of a
mirror in a darkened room) has done that with several established publications in
the United Kingdom (
The Sun,
The Times) and United States (
The New York Post,
The Wall Street Journal).
The idealism resides in the fact that we’d
like to believe that newspaper editors like Humphrey Bogart’s Ed Hutcheson are
still around today: an individual who understands that the job of a paper is to
“comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable” (a phrase made famous by
humorist Finley Peter Dunne, though others—including W.E. “Ned” Chilton III,
the legendary editor of
The Charleston
Gazette—have used that phrase a lot as well).
The idea for
Deadline
seems to have come to writer-director Richard Brooks from two separate
newspapers.
In
Tough as Nails, a biography on Brooks written by Douglass K.
Daniel, the author claims that Brooks based the decision to sell the paper by
the heirs of
The Day on
real-life events involving
The New
York World, which closed in 1931 after the sons of Joseph Pulitzer
wanted to sell the paper rather than see it continue.
The
New York Sun, which stopped its presses in 1950, also provided
inspiration for Brooks’ screenplay (originally called “The Night the World
Folded” and “The Newspaper Story”); its longtime editor Benjamin Day, would see
his last name borrowed for the film’s fictional publication (and not the New
London, Connecticut paper that shares the same name).
To prepare for his role as Hutcheson, Bogie
began hanging out with reporters at the
The
New York Daily News…who lent its printing plant and newsroom for some
of the movie’s location shooting.
All of
this lends an authentic feel to the over atmosphere of the film, and the
opening scene—with the mobster Rienzi assuring his inquisitors “I’m in the
cement and contracting business”—echoes the recent events of the Kefauver
hearings into organized crime (which turns up in several movies of that era,
including
The Captive City and
The Turning Point).
There is endlessly quotable dialogue in Deadline, and much of it rings true today. My favorite scene in the film is the “wake”
held by The Day staff upon
learning of the sale, as each reporter stands up (as if at a revival meeting)
and “testifies”:
ALLEN: I see the light, Brother…
(The crowd breaks out in a chorus
of huzzahs and hallelujahs)
THOMPSON: Purify your soul, sinner!
ALLEN (holding up a copy of The Standard): Save your tears…this is what the readers want…
CLEARY (as the others drown Allen
out with catcalls): Throw the atheist out!
ALLEN: Don’t sell it short—it’s got
twice our circulation and three times our advertising lineup…
(Hutcheson takes the paper from
Allen and stares at it)
THOMPSON: Well, it’s yellow…but it’s not exactly a newspaper…
CLEARY: It keeps its people working…
(More choruses of “Hallelujah”)
HUTCHESON: Well, maybe if I’d given
you this kind of paper you’d still have jobs…there’s
a place for this kind of sheet…
CLEARY: Where, Daddy?
HUTCHESON: All right, so it’s not
your kind of paper…who are we putting out papers for? You?
(Pointing to others off-camera) You?
You? (Laughs) It’s not enough
anymore to give them just news…they want comics, contests, puzzles…they want to
know how to bake a cake, win friends and influence the future…ergo, horoscopes…tips
on the horses…interpretation of dreams so they can win on the numbers lotteries…and if they accidentally stumble onto the first page… (Slamming
the paper on the bar) News!
 |
| The actor playing Bellamy, the journalism student, would make a few more movies before deciding to work on the other side of the camera. William Self would become the man in charge of 20th Century-Fox television in the 1960s, overseeing such hit shows as 12 O'Clock High, Lost in Space, Batman, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Peyton Place and Daniel Boone. |
After the “wake” winds down, Hutcheson is approached by a
journalism student (William Self) who presents a letter of introduction from
his professor and informs the editor that he wants to be a reporter.
In his typically cynical style,
Bogie-as-editor peppers the greenhorn with questions—particularly when Johnny Journalism
announces his intention to become a foreign correspondent—but after giving the
kid his baptism by fire, tells him to come around and see him in the morning
(he eventually is assigned to “rewrite desk, lobster shift”—Bogie’s secretary
[Barton Yarborough] explains to the kid that they call it that because “after
midnight, we serve lobsters—thermidor, naturally”)…and delivers the one line
that stays with you after the picture is finished: “…about this wanting to be a
reporter—don't ever change your mind.
It
may not be the oldest profession, but it's the
best.”
 |
| The man who wants to take Hutcheson's ex-wife with him to Albany. Ed sees a picture of him in Nora's apartment and cracks: "I don't like him...I'll think of a reason later." |
In a way, I can understand why
His Girl Friday and
Deadline
– U.S.A. were Mr. Pierce’s choices for greatest and second-greatest
newspaper movies;
Deadline is really
a more somber version of
Friday.
Like Walter Burns pulling all the stops out
to get ex-spouse Hildy Johnson back, Ed Hutcheson attempts to win back his
estranged wife Nora even though it’s been
The
Day who’s acted as co-respondent throughout their marriage.
(As Barrymore’s Garrison says to Ed at one
point in the film: “You wouldn’t have had a wife if that newspaper had
beautiful legs.”)
Ed has even got his own
Bruce Baldwin in the form of Lewis Schafer (played by Philip Terry, Ray Milland’s
“good” brother in
The Lost Weekend),
whom Nora plans to marry (he’s her boss at the advertising firm where she
works).
Ed gets a visit from Schafer
(and like the Cary Grant-Ralph Bellamy scene in
Friday, Bogie keeps holding Terry off at arms-length because of the
office hustle-and-bustle), which allows him to give him the once-over…and when
Lewis explains to Hutcheson that he’s there on behalf of protecting Nora he’s
verbally cut off at the knees by Ed: “Well, that’s not only ridiculous, that’s
insulting—you’re not that much of a prize.”
(Later, Ed asks the paper’s top researcher, Miss Barndollar [Florence
Shirley], to go digging into Schafer’s background…and is disappointed when the
investigation reveals his wife’s fiancé to be squeaky-clean.)
Like His Girl Friday,
politics and corruption plays a huge role in Deadline – U.S.A.; the Rienzi storyline gives the movie sort of a
noir feel but there’s also a suggestion that both elected officials and the
police aren’t entirely on the up-and-up—Begley’s Allen is asked by a
plainclothes detective investigating Herman Schmidt’s death: “Can’t you tell
the difference between a hoodlum and a cop?”
 |
| The actress' name (Kasia Orzazewski) does not come trippingly off the tongue...but it's the same lady who plays the scrubwoman trying to free her son in Call Northside 777 (1948), another newspaper favorite here at TDOY. |
“In this town?” Allen hesitatingly asks before deciding
discretion is the better part of valor by replying “Yes, sir.”
The film’s admittedly
deux ex machina ending also seems borrowed from
His Girl Friday (the part where editor
Burns muses that newspapers are protected by a “higher power”), in which an
innocent babe-in-the-wood brings down the villain simply by being honest.
Deadline
even has a hard-boiled female reporter in the Hildy Johnson mold; as played by
Audrey Christie, she goes only by “Willabrandt”—but it’s her tenacious, patent-shoe-leather
investigating that sparks the discovery of the connection between the dead
Bessie Schmidt and gangster Rienzi.
She
also has one of the loveliest moments in the movie, when she gets up to “testify”
at the paper’s wake:
WILLABRANDT (looking at a copy of The Day, adorned with candles): It’s
a lovely corpse…alas, poor dear—I knew it well…and why not? I gave it the best fourteen years of my life…and what have I got to show for it,
huh? Eighty-one dollars in the bank…two
dead husbands and… (Her voice softens) Two or three kids I always wanted, but
never had… (Her voice rises) I’ve covered everything from electrocutions to
love nest brawls…I’ve got fallen arches, unfixed teeth and…you wanna know
something? I…I never saw Paris…but I
wouldn’t change those years… (Now choked with emotion) Not for anything in this
world…
Christie is just one of the incredible cast of character
performers in this film: there are tons of familiar TV faces and scads of
recognizable voices for us old-time radio fans in the audience.
Barton Yarborough, who played the best damn
partner
Dragnet’s Joe Friday ever had made this movie his cinematic
swan song, and you’ll also be able to pick out Parley Baer (as the headwaiter
at the restaurant Bogie takes Kim Hunter), Willis Bouchey, Lawrence Dobkin (as
the Rienzi lawyer), Dabbs Greer, Norman “Mr. Fenton” Leavitt, Tudor Owen and
Frank Wilcox…plus so many others.
Ed
Begley, Jim Backus (in a nice serious role with moments of levity), Paul
Stewart and Joe De Santis are also first-rate…and I’m always tickled by Martin
Gabel’s performance as the racketeer Rienzi because he looks more like an
accountant (which was probably why he was cast; a man in his position would
want to keep a low-profile)
The only flaw in the film is that outside of Christie's Willabrandt and Ethel Barrymore’s
marvelous character, there aren’t too many strong female personages in the
film; Kim Hunter is sadly wasted, though she does bring whatever she can to a
thankless role…and it’s interesting to note that despite Nora’s weariness at
having had to play second fiddle to
The
Day all those years she’s never wavered in her support of her
ex-husband (she encourages him fiercely to pursue the Rienzi story with
everything he’s got).
Nora informs her
ex that she’s backed out of marrying Schafer, but whether or not there’ll be
happy ending in their future is speculation by the audience.
The movie is pretty much Bogie’s all the way
(he was Brooks’ only choice even though the studio wanted Gregory Peck or
Richard Widmark) though the experience of working with the actor wasn’t quite
as pleasant for Brooks as it had been previously (Brooks co-wrote the
screenplay for
Key Largo).
The director later attributed Bogie’s
difficulties and snappish behavior to Bogart’s gradual decline in health; an
oft-told story has the actor throwing a star tantrum during the filming of a
scene with Barrymore, with Bogart resisting the way Brooks wanted to stage the
sequence.
Barrymore finally yelled at
him “Humphrey, will you for Christ’s sake do it!”
“Why should I?” he snapped at her.
“Because Humphrey,” she replied, “the Swiss
have no navy.”
Bogart broke up at this, and finally agreed
to do the scene the director’s way.
Later, when Brooks confronted his friend in his dressing room, Bogie
admitted that he’d been making rather merry with some friends the night before
and hadn’t learned the speech in that scene.
He had been too embarrassed to admit it in front of the other cast
members.
Despite the grief Bogart dished out on
Deadline – U.S.A., it’s always been one of my favorites of his
films (I know, it only
seems that I
say that about every Bogie movie); his weariness in the role (much of it left
over from the demanding shoot that was
The
African Queen) helps to define his jaded character, a dedicated man who’s only
got one more battle in him and he has to make it the best.
It’s interesting that this is the rare film
where the chain-smoking actor never lights a cigarette (though he does reach
for a pack in one scene before he’s interrupted), but Bogart demonstrates that
one doesn’t need to smoke or carry a gun to be a tough guy; his character’s
steeliness comes from the fact that he buys his ink by the barrel, and that he
truly believes in the nobility of his profession.
As he tells the journalism student: “A
profession is a performance for the
public
good…that’s why newspaper work is a
profession.”
