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Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

How sad is this?

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Deadline at Dawn has a Trojan Horse of a protagonist. After a brief prologue, we start the film with Al, a young, square-jawed and impeccably decent sailor on shore leave who proceeds to get himself tangled up in a web of murder and blackmail. The usual, basically. To be honest, this guy's naive to the point of stretching credulity and Bill Williams' performance does little to add layers or nuance to this very broad character. Somewhere along the way though, there's a hand-off that occurs, with Susan Hayward's more streetwise dancehall girl taking precedence. Her character, along with a philosophical cabbie (played by Paul Lukas) are clear standouts here and make for a good, if not quite classic, film noir as they're put through their paces by a twistier-than-average script.Bottom line: Fans of film noir should find a lot to interest them here.

Many of the standard film noir components are blended together brilliantly in "Deadline At Dawn" to create a murder mystery that features a culprit whose identity, when revealed, is a genuine surprise. As its title suggests, the plot involves a race against time which adds tension and intensity as an innocent fall guy tries to prove that he's not a killer. Numerous twists, dead ends and colourful characters complicate the search for the real murderer and the dark city streets in which much of the action takes place, seem to carry a threat all of their own.When on-leave sailor Alex Winkley (Bill Williams) wakes up in a New York City newsstand with a hangover and $1,400 in his pocket, he struggles to remember what happened before he blacked out. Gradually, he recalls losing all his money in a fixed card game and a woman who invited him to her apartment to fix her radio. As she refused to pay him for restoring her radio to working order, Alex comes to the conclusion that he must have stolen the money from her apartment to cover his losses.In his confused state, Alex goes to a nearby dance-hall where he meets a taxi-dancer called June (Susan Hayward) who later takes him back to her place for sandwiches and listens when he tells her about the guilt he feels about not being able to remember how the $1,400 came into his possession. June advises him to take the money back to the apartment and agrees to go with him. When they go there, they find that Edna Bartelli (Lola Lane) has been strangled to death and Alex becomes anxious because he can't remember whether or not he killed her and also becomes convinced that the police will obviously regard him as the prime suspect.June, whose life and work in the city has made her very cynical, feels some sympathy for Alex and finding his exceptional naiveté rather refreshing, decides to help him in his search for the real killer. Together, throughout a long hot night, they follow up whatever leads they can find with increasing desperation as they're also sharply aware that they only have until 6.00 a.m. to complete their investigation because, at that time, Alex has to catch his bus to report back to his base in Norfolk, Virginia."Deadline At Dawn" packs a lot into its 83 minutes and features a series of interesting characters. Alex and June are helped in their endeavours by a good natured cab driver, Gus Hoffman (Paul Lukas) who puts his cab at their disposal and shares his thoughts on life with them. Edna Bartelli turns out to be a woman with many enemies because she and her gangster husband, Val (Joseph Calleia) ran a blackmail scheme with many victims. Three of these victims, a blonde woman with a limp, a mystery woman with a gun who enters the Bartelli apartment to recover some letters and a Broadway producer who's a business associate of Val Bartelli, all become obvious suspects as does Edna's ex-husband, Sleepy Parsons (Marvin Miller).The main strengths of this movie are its plot, which is based on a Cornell Woolrich (aka William Irish) novel, its array of well-drawn characters and Nicholas Musuraca's cinematography which contributes so much to the wonderful look and powerful atmosphere of the piece. In addition, a whole series of strong performances, especially from Susan Hayward, Paul Lukas and Joseph Calleia make this an enjoyable thriller that remains totally gripping throughout.

Bill Williams plays Alex Winkley, a sailor on leave who awakens from a drunken blackout to find a large sum of money on his person, which he believes belongs to a young woman named Edna(played by Lola Lane) whom he had helped the night before. Sadly, he finds her dead, and is unsure if he's guilty or not, but is helped by a dance hall girl(played by Susan Hayward) and a friendly taxi driver(played by Paul Lukas) to solve the mystery, which has many suspects, and he only has four more hours until he has to report back to his ship, or be AWOL. OK film noir has likable performances which compensate for the complicated mystery which ends up having a semi-surprising resolution.

This modest film noir is flat-out crazy and a tremendous amount of fun.Bill Williams plays a sailor on leave who follows a floozy back to her room, passes out and then finds upon waking that the floozy is dead and can't remember what if anything he had to do with it. He's got to catch a boat (or is it train?) at dawn, and is afraid he'll be implicated in the murder if he doesn't find the true killer before then. He teams up with a dance hall hostess (Susan Hayward) and, before the evening's out, a cab driver (Paul Lukas) and sets out into the New York midnight to solve the crime.The screenplay doesn't make a lick of sense, and my wife and I found ourselves actually laughing at the preposterous developments and turns in the story. It's hilarious how committed these three people are to solving this crime despite the fact that there's absolutely nothing attaching the sailor to it, and how easy a time they have following up on clues in as huge a city as NY despite the fact that the clues are things like "he was wearing a tuxedo" and "she had blonde hair." A plot twist at the movie's end, when the real killer is revealed, is right up there with the best of them. Oscar winner Paul Lukas brings much more acting ability to his performance than his role requires, and Susan Hayward is absolutely riveting. This was my first and so far only exposure to this acclaimed actress, and I look forward to many more.What a blast this movie is! Grade: A-