Bas les masques

This wonderful 1952 film - it must have been approaching Humphrey's last performance - wins on all levels.

It triumphs as an historical curiosity into how newspapers were published 50 years ago, down to the presses and the layouts and assignments, and also for its truly remarkable supporting cast, many of them, some famous, like Ethel Barrymore, Jim Backus and Ed Begley and some part of the Hollywood backdrops in score of movies.

Kim Hunter excels also as the Bogart ex. Martin Gabel eerily predicts the Tony Soprano performance of today as an underworld Kingpin shown with his perfect domestic arrangement.

The scene of the "wake" for the death of the newspaper is wonderful, and also some wonderful camera pans on continuous action in many scenes.

The script is well done and keeps the action moving along, some funny throwaway lines too, particularly in the car scene with the mobster and in his ex-wife's bedroom.

Also it is subtle and understated and not rampant with the 2X4's of some of today's instant-soup scripts. Do not miss this one, Bogie and Kim fans!!

8 out of 10.

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.

Being the editor of a newspaper is intense, when the world outside your window don't make sense, where gangsters rule the roost, the owners easily seduced, an ex-wife who will not give you recompense. So we follow you around and watch you play, it's fair to say, that these are not ordinary days, always going toe to toe, they could be friends, they could be foes, but you ensure everyone, hears what you say. The performances are fine and competent, the emotion and the passion sufficient, not really sure the story's deep, there's not a lot of underneath, but it's 90 minutes that can be well spent.

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.

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.