Chicago Noir City 3...Day 4...as Dan in the MW...Takes a look...Newspaper Noir...with Bogie and Ladd On As Newspaper Men in Two Hard-hitting Film Noir

Chicago: Noir City 3 (Day 4)
Posted by Dan in the MW on 8/15/2011, 10:28 pm
My calendar said that it was Monday today. Ask anyone who manages a bar or restaurant and they will tell you Monday is usually the slowest business day of the week.

Nevertheless, the Music Box Theater was packed almost to capacity tonight.
It was probably the single largest crowd to attend any of the Noir City film festival dates with the sole possible exception of when Harry Belafonte agreed to be interviewed by Foster Hirsch when "The Odds Against Tomorrow" was shown in 2009. If my memory serves me correctly, that special guest appearance may have taken place on a weekend, possibly on a Saturday night. Today was a Monday.

It was exciting to be in attendance tonight, but not if you need to wait in line at the concession counter or make a hurried visit to the restroom. The lobby was crowded with people at the intermission.

What brought the spectators out in droves were two rarely screened newspaper themed noirs: "Deadline USA" and "Chicago Deadline." The first film starred Humphrey Bogart and the latter featured Alan Ladd.

I attended the earliest double feature and was able to exchange greetings with Professor Foster Hirsch beforehand. Hirsch arrived in Chicago to act as the master of ceremonies for the final four days of the festival after author and film historian Alan K. Rode returned to California. I met Hirsch quite by accident as I was walking towards the Music Box Theater. He promised me that tonight's two films were great. His recommendation was one hundred correct.

Former Chicago Tribune columnist Bob Greene was in the audience for the first screening of the night "Deadline USA" and an audience member thoughtfully brought a copy of one of Greene's old articles in which he posited that "Deadline USA" was the best movie to be made about the newspaper industry. When Foster Hirsch learned that Greene was present, he invited him to make some remarks before the start of the movie.
"Deadline USA" was written and directed by a former newspaperman, Richard Brooks, and it was excellent. Humphrey Bogart played the editor of a daily newspaper with a circulation of 290,000 that is about to purchased by a tabloid competitor that is seeking to obtain its best features and shut the respected paper down. Ethel Barrymore played the aging wife of the newspaper's late publisher who is unable to maintain control of the corporation once her two married daughters seek to cash in by selling their shares. A ruthless mobster(Martin Gabel) is the target of Bogart's final journalistic crusade against municipal corruption. Bogart apparently was made available for his role on a loan out to 20th Century Fox since he was primarily working for Columbia Pictures, where his own production company was based, at this stage of his career.

Chicago author and historian Richard C. Lindberg, who delivered a guest commentary when Chicago Noir City 1 screened "Call North Side 777" in 2009, was in attendance tonight for the second feature, "Chicago Deadline." I liked both of the movies, but "Chicago Deadline" really struck a chord with some audience members. The use of Chicago exterior locations in the film was quite good, including numerous scenes shot on the West Side of Chicago in many former residential neighborhoods that no longer exist.
The moving conclusion of the film takes place in a funeral home and the camera crew filmed the facade of St. John Cantius Roman Catholic Church and the Michalik Funeral Home. Both of these locations are near Chicago and Milwaukee Avenues and are still very much in use. I attended a Requiem Mass at St. John's in May of this year and the funeral directors from Michalik handled the arrangements.

"Chicago Deadline" had an interesting storyline about an unfortunate woman who is found dead of tuberculosis in a seedy rooming house. Reporter Alan Ladd happens upon the scene minutes before the police arrive and he discovers that the deceased kept a diary filled with addresses and telephone numbers. Once he begins probing the matter, he learns that a variety of influential people and criminals are eager to see his newspaper column suppressed and the diary destroyed.

Donna Reed plays the attractive young woman whose life is progressively destroyed by an unkind fate and the powers that be in the cruel city. The fine supporting cast included Roy Roberts, Berry Kroeger and Arthur Kennedy.
The film had an eerie and morose quality to it like a combined hybrid of "Laura" and "The Portrait of Jenny." Ladd becomes obsessed with learning the truth about Reed's dead character and powerful people are prepared to kill him for pursuing the facts. I was impressed with Ladd's performance and it should be ranked with many of his better known screen roles.
Neither of these two exceptional films are available on commercial dvds. What a damned shame!
Directors Richard Brooks and Lewis Allen both had some fine film credits. Brooks was a twin threat as a writer and director. His credits include "Brute Force," "Crossfire," "Key Largo," "Storm Warning," "The Blackboard Jungle," plus one of my personal favorites, "Elmer Gantry," and, of course, "In Cold Blood." Allen directed "Desert Fury," "So Evil, My Love," "Suddenly," and "Illegal."

It is almost unfathomable to me how these two titles were consigned to oblivion until rescued by the Film Noir Foundation. Both featured quality casts and crews and were released by major studios, not by forgotten production companies based on Poverty Row, but neither of these two exceptional films are more widely known. More's the pity!

The Film Noir Foundation is to be applauded for resurrecting these two unjustly forgotten films. As one elderly theater patron observed to Alan K. Rode on Sunday night, the Film Noir Foundation is "doing the work of angels" in preserving valuable motion picture treasures that would otherwise be lost.
[Thanks, Dan in the M.W. For sharing your daily/ evening rushes with me and the readers...
Films titles to be screened tomorrow at "The Music Box" "The Story Of Molly X" [1949] and "Crash-Out" [1955]