Deadline U.S.A. Reviews

Bogart stars as the embattled editor of The Day, a great newspaper that is about to be sold and then systematically destroyed. Barrymore, the feisty widow of the paper's altruistic founder, resists the efforts of her two daughters, Baker and MacKenzie, to sell the paper so they can maintain their lavish lifestyles. At the same time, Bogart, at great personal risk, is attempting to expose rackets boss Gabel. Bogart's staff of expert snoopers--Begley, Stewart, Stevens, Christie, Backus--finally get to the bottom of Gabel's corrupt empire and, more important, turn up a murder committed by the crime czar. To prove conclusively that Gabel is responsible for the killing, Bogart and Stewart track down cowardly, sniveling De Santis, who admits that he turned his back when Gable murdered his sister. Just as De Santis begins to relate the details of his story--for a big monetary payoff, naturally--police detectives spirit him away from the newspaper's offices and turn him over to Gabel's henchmen. These thugs kill De Santis by hurling him from a high gangway onto the roaring presses in the paper's printing plant. Meanwhile, Bogart appears before a judge and pleads with him not to prohibit the sale of The Day. Bogart's impassioned speech about a free press stirs Barrymore to support the editor, and the judge temporarily halts the sale of the paper, allowing Bogart a short period of time to prove the newspaper's worth. While Bogart goes after Gabel with a vengeance, he also tries to patch things up with his estranged wife, Hunter, who has had enough of playing second fiddle to the newspaper. Nevertheless, Gabel appears to have won out, until the murdered girl's mother, Orzazewski (the scrubwoman mother of innocent victim Richard Conte in CALL NORTHSIDE 777), suddenly appears at the newspaper office. Explaining that she is a longtime reader of The Day and has been paying close attention the paper's crusading columns about Gabel and her daughter, Orzazewski provides the newspaper with her daughter's diary, which proves Gabel not only a murderer but the chief of the city's crime organization. In the meantime, however, The Day is finally sold by Barrymore's greedy daughters, but the paper runs one last edition featuring the murdered showgirl's diary, thereby sealing Gabel's fate. Although Bogart has lost the newspaper, Hunter returns to him. Bogart is terrific as the no-nonsense editor who infects his staff with idealism. Supporting actors Stewart, Stevens, and Begley are outstanding as believable newspaper heroes, Gabel's portrayal of evil incarnate is fascinating, and Barrymore conveys nobility and toughness as the woman who refuses to compromise the ethics of her paper. Shot in a semi-documentary style by director Brooks, DEADLINE--U.S.A. makes effective use of the daily routines involved in turning out a newspaper. Brooks and producer Siegel were no strangers to their subject matter in that both were involved in the newspaper game at one time.