Chicago Deadline
| Chicago Deadline | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster
|
|
| Directed by | Lewis Allen |
| Produced by | Robert Fellows |
| Screenplay by | Warren Duff |
| Based on | the novel One Woman by Tiffany Thayer |
| Starring |
Alan Ladd Donna Reed |
| Music by | Victor Young |
| Cinematography | John F. Seitz |
| Edited by | LeRoy Stone |
|
Production
company |
|
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
|
Release date
|
|
|
Running time
|
86 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Chicago Deadline is a 1949 American film noir thriller directed Lewis Allen. The production features Alan Ladd, Donna Reed, June Havoc, Irene Hervey and Arthur Kennedy.
It was remade as Fame Is the Name of the Game (1966).
Ed Adams (Alan Ladd) is a reporter for a Chicago newspaper. By chance he is in a boardinghouse just when the body of a dead woman is found by a cleaning lady. The body belongs to a beautiful female tenant named Rosita Jean d’Ur (Donna Reed). Ed is drawn to the dark, mysterious woman, and manages to steal her diary before the law gets to the scene. In the diary Rosita has listed a total of fifty-four names.
The police declare that the cause of death for Rosita was a tubercular hemorrhage, but Ed suspects otherwise. His curiosity increases after calling several of the people listed in her diary and not one of them admits to knowing her. Ed talks to hoodlum Solly Wellman, G. G. Temple, the vice-president of a major trust company, and Belle Dorset, and they all deny any knowledge of Rosita. However, Belle Dorset is so shook up by the call that she immediately moves.
Ed gets a lead in this criminal conundrum and follows it to a party. There he meets Leona Purdy, an alluring blonde woman who once knew Rosita, but who fails to reveal anything about the deceased woman. Ed starts dating Leona, but he continues his investigation of what happened to Rosita. Although his co-workers think Rosita was a promiscuous woman, Ed is convinced that she was mistreated because she was compassionate. Ed’s suspicions about the circumstances surrounding her lonely death grow increasingly, especially after both Wellman and Temple start to threaten him.
Tommy Ditman, Rosita's brother, eventually approaches Ed and tells him about his once so innocent sister: Rosita was only seventeen years old when she ran away from their home in Amarillo, Texas. She went to San Francisco, and Tommy tracked her down. When he arrived in San Francisco he found out that she had fallen in love with an artist, Paul Jean d'Ur. They married and moved to New York. Tommy didn’t see his sister very much after that. He informs Ed that her husband Paul died in a car accident some time after their marriage went bad. Tommy says Rosita became lonely and bitter and had difficulty keeping a job.
...
Wikipedia