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. |
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)
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!
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." |
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 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.
“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.”
9 comments:
"Deadline USA" is a dandy. That was my late father's highest praise and his opinion of this movie that he first made me watch when I was a teen. I liked it then, but I love it now. Great article.
This is one of the greats, no doubt, no argument. It struck me that Ed's description of the type of paper people seemed to want, one that hardly included actual 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 ..." sounds uncomfortably like Facebook and many other "news" sites on the internet! Well, the background colors aren't yellow, but a rose by any other color....
You mentioned two other great journalism movies that are in my never-forget great category, Call Northside 777 and Ace In The Hole (which I always knew as The Big Carnival). Fabulous stuff. Your research and insights about Deadline were prime, Ivan, and your article the same.
I've never seen this one, and it looks like I'm really missing out!
Thanks for a comprehensive and thoughtful review.
I wasn't always a fan of Richard Brooks' films, as I think he could sometimes get heavy-handed, but DEADLINE U.S.A. is one of his best, and it's one of Bogart's best as well. And I never thought of it as the flip side to HIS GIRL FRIDAY, but that's a good point. Nice write-up.
Great review. Must see this again.
Splendid review of this great film. I love the quotes you've chosen. I agree, it's one of the very best movies for newspaper stories.
As a mild-mannered newspaperman myself, I can attest to the film's verisimilitude. Every character rings true.
This Journalism in Classic Film blogathon is introducing us to alot of great films we never heard of before. I was familiar with the Deadline USA title but not its plot. Sorry Ivan, I didn't read your entire post in order to avoid spoiling the thrill f the first watch, but what I did read was great!
Hmmm.... Forsome reason I've avoided this one, but your excellent article makes me need to rectify this. Sounds juicy!!
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