Chicago Deadline *** (1949, Alan Ladd, Donna Reed, June Havoc, Berry Kroeger, Irene Hervey, Arthur Kennedy, Gavin Muir) – Classic Movie Review 10,103

Director Lewis Allen’s 1949 crime film noir Chicago Deadline is a very decent little newspaper melodrama starring Alan Ladd as Chicago newsman Ed Adams, an ace reporter who probes the story of a woman found dead apparently of natural causes in another room of his cheap hotel.

He pockets the woman’s personal notebook of phone numbers and decides to investigate, revealing two murders, a suicide and the man who drove her to her death.

There are also good parts for Donna Reed (seen in the many flashbacks as the dead woman Rosita Jean d’Ur), Arthur Kennedy as her brother Tommy Ditman, John Beal as her artist husband Paul Jean d’Ur, June Havoc as Leona Purdy, the call girl who helps Adams (Ladd) and Irene Hervey as Belle Dorset.

The screenplay by Warren Duff and Tiffany Thayer is taken from Thayer’s 1933 novel One Woman. It is remade as the TV movie Fame Is the Name of the Game (1966), the pilot episode of the subsequent series The Name of the Game.

Also in the cast are Berry Kroeger as Solly Wellman, Harold Vermilyea  as Anstruder, Shepperd Strudwick  as Blacky Frenchot, Dave Willock as Pig, Gavin Muir as G.G. Temple, John Beal as Paul Jean d’Ur, Tom Powers as Glenn Howard, Howard Freeman as Hotspur Shaner, Paul Lees as Bat Bennett, Margaret Field as Minerva, Harry Antrim as Gribbe, Roy Roberts as Jerry Cavanaugh and Marietta Canty as Hazel.

John F Seitz shoots in black and white.

Filming started on 29 July 1948 on location in Chicago. It earned $3.8 million.

Donna Reed had just appeared with Ladd in Beyond Glory.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,103

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