Viewing Tip

[Vince Keenan]

Turner Classic Movies will be showing 1946's Deadline at Dawn tonight (Tuesday, October 30) at 11:45 PM Eastern. I caught it at Eddie Muller's Noir City festival earlier this year, and Megan Abbott wrote an appreciation of it in the Film Noir Foundation's latest newsletter. Trust me when I say it's one of the damnedest movies you'll ever see. Clifford Odets adapting Cornell Woolrich for Harold Clurman, founder of the Group Theater directing his only film. If you've ever wondered what a noir written by Barton Fink would be like, set that DVR.

[Vince Keenan]

I initially couldn't make head or tail of it when I saw it earlier this year, Don, but it grew on me. I watched it again on Tuesday night and decided that I like the movie. More for what it tries to say than how it says it.

[Don Anderson]

Vince: I watched last night and found the film to have an almost dreamlike, absurdist quality. Lots of noir dialogue clichés and questionable characters. Certainly different from any other move I've seen (and I like the Coen brothers). Still not sure about my final impression.