DEADLINE - U.S.A.
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Sound format: Mono
(Black and white)
Humphrey Bogart plays a hard-boiled newspaper editor in Richard Brooks' drama in much the same way he used to play hard-boiled detectives and gangsters in the 1930s and 40s. This tough-talking drama from 20th Century Fox emulates the gritty Warner Bros. 'style' of its day, though it's hard not to be cynical about the script's high-falutin' insistence on the nobility of the press (!). Ethel Barrymore plays a matriarchal publisher with the kind of effortless dignity that distinguished her entire career, and most of the supporting cast are solid. Elsewhere, Bogart's marital woes are unconvincing and don't add very much to the narrative, despite the obvious (and genuine) attempt to provide the characters with some kind of emotional depth.