L'ultima minaccia

This film was released (as I remember) the same year as The African Queen. I have always liked it more than the latter film. Richard Brooks's prior experience working on a newspaper gives it a genuine idea of what that kind of work is like. The performances of Bogart and Barrymore are very good. I think it's one of her very best. This movie deserves to be seen and appreciated more.

Deadline - U.S.A. has Humphrey Bogart as the editor of a big city newspaper that is in the process of being sold to a Rupert Murdoch like chain that publishes scandal sheets. His paper is in the process at the same time of doing an expose of notorious racketeer Martin Gabel.

And if that ain't enough for Bogey his wife Kim Hunter is splitting from him. It's the usual story, she can't stand having him married to her and the paper as well.

Growing up in New York in the Fifties we had several newspapers, each vying for a smaller readership. I remember we had the Times, News, Post, Herald Tribune, World-Telegram&Sun, Journal-American, and the Daily Mirror. Some of those you can see are the products of consolidation, there were more in the past. After a printer's strike in the sixties most of them went out of business.

The papers were competing for a shrinking share of readership. In the previous generation, radio competed with the print media and I grew up with that new phenomenon of television. Today we are seeing the effects of the Internet as the individual's primary source for news.

The gangster part of the plot gets started with the discovery of the body of a Virginia Hill like moll, the former mistress of Martin Gabel. While some of the scandal sheets cover the sensational aspects of the murder of a glamor girl, Bogey's paper does some serious investigative reporting and uncovers a lot of evidence. Their work also has consequences including the maiming of young reporter Warren Stevens.

In the meantime the heirs of the newspaper's original founder are looking to sell the paper. Opposing it is their mother, Ethel Barrymore and she has a fine part and is obviously the model for the widow publisher played by Nancy Marchand in Lou Grant. She has one classic scene with Humphrey Bogart where they commiserate over their mutual problems.

Deadline - U.S.A. is a realistic look at the life of a big city paper in days gone by. It's a gritty piece of nostalgia, as timely in its day as The Front Page was in the Twenties. Cast members like Paul Stewart, Jim Backus, and Ed Begley look and feel right at home at their jobs.

The film is recommended particularly for younger viewers who are glued to their computers and television to see how a newspaper functioned back in the day.

The 40's and 50's had quite a few movies in which newspapers and newspapermen were the central focus. There was "Scandal Sheet," "Ace in the Hole," "It Happened Tomorrow," "Foreign Correspondent," "His Girl Friday," this movie, and others. I suppose it makes sense considering print media was the largest and most influential form of media with television a decade or so away from becoming the ubiquitous medium it is now.

Ed Hutcheson (Humphrey Bogart) was the editor of The Day, a thriving New York newspaper. The owner and founder had just died and The Day was being sold by the wife and the two daughters. Ed was giving it his all trying to do what he could to prevent the sale as well as continue to print relevant news. He dedicated all of his staff and resources to looking into a local mobster named Tomas Rienzi (Martin Gabel) when one of his reporters was hospitalized for digging up too much information on the same gangster. He thought maybe, just maybe, this story would both: expose a criminal and save the paper.

This was an ideologue movie. There were two stories running parallel to each other. One was the story of the gangster and his outsized influence, the other was the newspaper being sold to a competitor who was going to shutter it. The gangster story was a thrilling one, but the paper being sold was a principled one.

If The Day was sold to a competitor and then closed down, that would be one less voice for the people. It would be one less viewpoint, one less source of news, and one less competitor for the other papers. Such a thing couldn't be good for the reader and the average citizen. Market competition has always benefited the consumer (even though it's not benefiting us much nowadays with gas prices) while monopolies have always harmed the consumer.

This was a pivotal issue with The Day being sold, but it also directly confronted a person's or business's capitalistic right to sell their property. Should the courts prevent this sale based upon it taking away a source of news from your average citizen, what other sales would the courts be allowed to, or have to prevent? It was a novel argument that played out on screen and gave the viewer food for thought.

Free on YouTube.

A very good movie about The Day, a newspaper publishing its last editions, and its aggressive attack on a known mobster.

Humphrey Bogart does an excellent job as the editor, and Ethel Barrymore gives a wonderful, regal performance as the widow of the publisher, whose daughters are now demanding that the paper be sold to a competitor.

The film brings up, a mere 53 years ago, issues that are relevant today - the tabloids versus real, factual news, and the meaning of a free press. These debates continue today, but unfortunately, it seems that the tabloid type of journalism is winning.

As for a free press - our press might be freer than many, but it isn't entirely free. As anyone who lost money in the great savings and loan scandal can tell you, important stories disappear from the front pages all the time.

Bogart's strong performance is the engine that keeps this film going, and there's a nice performance by Kim Hunter as his ex-wife.

Deadline USA reminds us of the good old days, when you could believe what you read in the New York Times.

The film opens with a businessman being questioned in a courtoom, similar to the House Un-American Committee This newspaper may be sold, right in the middle of the biggest news story of the year. Stars Bogart as the editor, and Ethel Barrymore as Mrs. Garrison, the owner. and Jim Backus (Mr. Howell, from Gilligan's Island) is in here. Bogart tries to convince Mrs. Garrison to keep the paper going, but its an uphill battle. Not a lot of votes on imdb for this one, so TCM must not show it very often. Touching scene, where the reporters all hold a memorial for the paper in the bar.... even more prescient today, when there are very few papers left, and those few are an endangered species. Some similarites to Citizen Kane, where the respectable paper can't compete with the yellow, sensational papers for circulation. Written and directed by Richard Brooks, who was married to Jean Simmons. Pretty good stuff. I had never seen this one before. It really strikes a nerve today, with the interwebs really killing off newspapers.