An unusual film in that the stars Ladd and Reed never meet. She is dead when the film opens and her story is told entirely in flashbacks. Unfortunately the flashbacks are all rather dull and needlessly hold up the exciting present-day action with Ladd tangling with gangsters, though even in the contemporary sequences there is too much dialogue and not enough action and the scriptwriters seem unsure as how Miss Reed actually ties in with the present-day events (Ladd gives a perfunctory explanation at the climax which convinces no-one). It has a promising idea, but the script never really lives up to its promise. Many of the ideas here were worked up much more grippingly by Richard Brooks in Deadline USA. Lewis Allen's routine direction doesn't help either, nor does some obvious process screen work. In fact, production values are very moderate by "A" standards, and it's odd to find a Victor Young score attached to a film of this class. Ladd is fairly forceful, though his diminutive size is a handicap, but Miss Havoc looks far too old as his soul-mate (her character as written and played is highly ambiguous) and Miss Reed is rather colorless and unexciting for someone who causes all the present-day excitement. Shepperd Strudwick struggles manfully with another ambiguous characterization, while Berry Kroeger is rather blankly sinister as the gangster. Gavin Muir lets slip his opportunities and gives a superficial portrayal. Despite her prominence in the cast, Irene Hervey has only a small part (notice Marie Blake from the Dr Kildare series back in her accustomed post as a switchboard operator). The best players are Willock, Powers, and Vermilyea.

I have seen this excellent movie in 1951 in Barcelona/Spain when I was 20 and I liked it then and continue to like now very much, I considered it one of the greatest noir classic movies in history. Alan Ladd is fantastic in his role as a reporter; Donna Red is beautiful and had great performance in his playback roll, as Arthur Kennedy and the rest of the cast. is a pity that original seams lost. I have a copy of a VHS from a Honolulu TV, but it can be watched pretty well. the story is very well done by writers Warren Duff and Tiffany Thayer, and the development of the history very well done by director Lewis Allen. Alan Ladd one of my preferred actors is superb and I had said all the cast specially June Havoc, beautiful and charm-ant actress. the end of the movie remains on your mind as one of best ends of a movie in Hollywood history. I highly recommend for the be-lovers of noir classics.

Chicago Deadline finds reporter Alan Ladd uncovering the body of beautiful Donna Reed at a cheap boarding house in the Windy City. She's dead of natural causes, untreated tuberculosis which was quite common back in the day. Like Laura her beauty haunts Ladd, but what really intrigues him is her address book with one eclectic set of addresses and phone numbers. Something in his reporter's instinct tells him there's a story here and as he starts snooping, turns out there is one.Reed was a beautiful woman used and abused by any number of people, high and low. The only one who genuinely seems to be mourning her passing is brother Arthur Kennedy. Helping Ladd along with background is society woman June Havoc. The whole picture eventually does come together and it turns out Reed was into quite a few shady things. Naturally it all makes sense by the time the film is over.Alan Ladd's greatest screen credit might be in Citizen Kane where he curiously enough has a bit role as a reporter. Chicago Deadline like Kane is a jigsaw puzzle where the bits of Donna Reed's character Rosita D'Ur is put together the way Charles Foster Kane's is. Berry Kroeger who just does not play good guys on the screen is a malevolent gangster who is marvelously sinister as always. Another performance to note is Irene Hervey as Kroeger's moll who naturally resented Reed and anything about her.Another good film for Alan Ladd in his Paramount salad days.

Reporter Alan Ladd stumbles across a strange woman, dead of tuberculosis in a seedy Southside hotel. Her address book, however, hints at a wild and well-connected past. (The girl, with the improbable moniker of Rosita Jean D'Ur, is played in flashback by the improbable Donna Reed.) Ladd's quest, as any noir quest should, takes him up and down the intricate layers of Chicago society, through some of which his tour guide is society dame June Havoc, who plays it with panache. This downfall of a good kid with some bad breaks begins to obsess Ladd, and Chicago Deadline (it's been remarked) could almost have been a grittier Laura set not in high society but on cusp where shabby respectability meets the demimonde. But the cunning Vera Caspary (who wrote the novel Laura) is alas nowhere in evidence, so Chicago Deadline becomes almost an object lesson in Edmund Wilson's dictum that the heavy atmospherics in detective fiction are rarely justified by the conclusion. Nonetheless, for most of its running time, Chicago Deadline is a dark and haunting ride.