Ultimatum a Chicago

Reporter Alan Ladd stumbles across a strange woman, dead of tuberculosis in a seedy Southside hotel. Her address book, however, hints at a wild and well-connected past. (The girl, with the improbable moniker of Rosita Jean D'Ur, is played in flashback by the improbable Donna Reed.) Ladd's quest, as any noir quest should, takes him up and down the intricate layers of Chicago society, through some of which his tour guide is society dame June Havoc, who plays it with panache. This downfall of a good kid with some bad breaks begins to obsess Ladd, and Chicago Deadline (it's been remarked) could almost have been a grittier Laura set not in high society but on cusp where shabby respectability meets the demimonde. But the cunning Vera Caspary (who wrote the novel Laura) is alas nowhere in evidence, so Chicago Deadline becomes almost an object lesson in Edmund Wilson's dictum that the heavy atmospherics in detective fiction are rarely justified by the conclusion. Nonetheless, for most of its running time, Chicago Deadline is a dark and haunting ride.

Alan Ladd does a good job as a Chicago newspaper reporter in this mystery tale of a beautiful young girl in her twenties whom he finds dead. He takes her address book and puts it in his pocket and then reports her death to the police. He is determined to find out about her. And that leads to dangers, murders, and plenty of complications. Ladd one by one contacts the people she knew to try to piece together what is going on, nearly getting killed several times in the process, and others are killed as well to stop them talking. He identifies her and meets her very sympathetic brother, played by Arthur Kennedy, but he cannot tell the whole story. We see flashbacks as different people tell Ladd parts of the tale, and in those the girl is played by Donna Reed with her usual sympathetic face and quiet manner. This excellent film noir is little known but deserves attention. It is a good'un.

Chicago Deadline finds reporter Alan Ladd uncovering the body of beautiful Donna Reed at a cheap boarding house in the Windy City. She's dead of natural causes, untreated tuberculosis which was quite common back in the day. Like Laura her beauty haunts Ladd, but what really intrigues him is her address book with one eclectic set of addresses and phone numbers. Something in his reporter's instinct tells him there's a story here and as he starts snooping, turns out there is one.

Reed was a beautiful woman used and abused by any number of people, high and low. The only one who genuinely seems to be mourning her passing is brother Arthur Kennedy. Helping Ladd along with background is society woman June Havoc.

The whole picture eventually does come together and it turns out Reed was into quite a few shady things. Naturally it all makes sense by the time the film is over.

Alan Ladd's greatest screen credit might be in Citizen Kane where he curiously enough has a bit role as a reporter. Chicago Deadline like Kane is a jigsaw puzzle where the bits of Donna Reed's character Rosita D'Ur is put together the way Charles Foster Kane's is.

Berry Kroeger who just does not play good guys on the screen is a malevolent gangster who is marvelously sinister as always. Another performance to note is Irene Hervey as Kroeger's moll who naturally resented Reed and anything about her.

Another good film for Alan Ladd in his Paramount salad days.

Reporter Alan Ladd (Ed Adams) outrageously interferes with things when he steals an address book from the room in which Donna Reed (Rosita) is found dead. He retraces her life by contacting the people in this address book and a few people get bumped off along the way.

Unfortunately Donna Reed hasn't led a very interesting life so God knows why anyone would show any interest in pursuing her address book, especially as her death is not at all suspicious. Alan Ladd is obviously a weirdo.

A lot of time is spent on the telephone in this film. It's just blah blah blah on the blower! Still, the film is OK even if you can't follow the cast of thousands. Alan Ladd sums things up for you at the end with a synopsis of what has just happened. But he delivers it at breakneck speed so it doesn't really help. It's a vehicle for Alan Ladd and it's all a bit pointless.

A reporter (Alan Ladd) discovers the body of a beautiful young girl (Donna Reed) in a cheap Chicago hotel, and in trying to retrace the events leading to her death becomes involved with the characters from her past life, all thanks to her diary ...

The host of names of men in the diary seem to be frightened by her death but claim never to have known her. Adams comes to know quite a lot, dangerously so.

Alan Ladd plays a fast talking reporter whose nose is sharp as his line delivery comebacks- he finds a diary of a dead woman and starts prying into her life, thanks to the names in her address book- Ranging from the rich to the crooked, the "names" are a bit nervous to talk about the dead lady.

It's a fast-paced, suspenseful noir mystery that doesn't lose focus and keeps you watching. Not much action, but the plot, the dialogue, and the characters are sharp . Ladd puts in a good performance.