Despite having read praise for his work in the Film Noir & Western genres over the years,I have somehow never got round to seeing any titles by director Anthony Mann,with the only Mann title that comes to mind being Spartacus-where he was replaced by a director called Stanley Kubrick. (whatever happened to him?!)With my dad having enjoyed seeing The Falcon movies last Christmas, I was pleased to stumble upon a Falcon-style Film Noir by Anthony Mann,starring Falcon lead Tom Conway, (aka Tom Sanders-George's brother) which led to me setting my clock,for a morning shot of courage.The plot:Walking around a street with blood dripping down his face,a man in a pin-stripe suit bumps into a taxi.Thinking that the guy is a drunk,cab driver Patty Mitchell tells the guy to get in the cab so she can drop him off home.Driving round,Mitchell is shocked to discover that along with the guy not being able to remember his name,that he is also unable to recognise his own face.Checking his pockets,the man finds nothing but 2 ticket stubs and $500.Suggesting to the man that the police may be able to help him track down his ID,Mitchell heads to the police station.Getting out the car,Mitchell and the man catch a snippet from a near-by radio that the police are after a murderer who has $500 on him,and was last seen wearing a pin-stripe suit. Believing that the man does not have the face of a murderer,Mitchell vows to drive the man to clear his name.View on the film:Keeping his "unofficial" remake of the 1936 Film Noir Two In The Dark to a trim 68 minutes,director Anthony Mann and cinematographer Jack MacKenzie give "the mans" stage world a glamorous appearance,which has darkness bubbling underneath,as Mann and MacKenzie show the elegant gowns & posh night clubs to be a cover for the double-crossing and lying that its inhabitants take part in.As "the man" and Mitchell gets closer to uncovering his identity,Mann wraps the title round a Film Noir thread,with Mann superbly using over-lapping shots to create an uneasy atmosphere,as "the man" starts to remember.Crossing a light Comedy touch into Film Noir territory,the screenplay by Robert E. Kent, Gelett Burgess and Gordon Kahn strikes a fine balance of keeping Mitchell & "the mans" exchanges hilariously quick-witted,whilst making sure that the corrupt world they find themselves entering is correctly treated with a harsh manner.Keeping the movies plot moving at an excellent pace,the writers display a real procession in revealing the mans troubled past piece by piece.Staying close together for most of the film,Ann Rutherford and Tom Conway both give splendid performances,with the pretty Rutherford curling Mitchell's lips round every sharp one-liner,whilst Tom Conway (who sounds just like his brother!) brilliantly shows his unknown past to rest heavy on his shoulder,as the man finds the courage to unlock his dimly-lit Side Street past.

Tom Conway and Ann Rutherford star in "Two O'Clock Courage," a 1945 film. Rutherford plays Patty, a taxicab driver who picks up an injured man (Conway) with amnesia. She attempts to help him, and the two are drawn into the murder of a producer. Her fare may or may not have had something to do with it.This film is more of a mystery/comedy, done with a light touch and a perky Ann Rutherford. She's pretty and bubbly, perhaps a little too much at the beginning of the film. Conway, who somehow, despite a similar voice, never had his brother George Sanders' smoothness, is good as a confused man trying to fake his way through a situation where he doesn't even know his own name."Two O'Clock Courage" has plenty of suspects and twists and goes on just a little longer than it needs to, but it's still a fun watch.

**SPOILERS** Walking around the almost empty streets in the dead of night "The Man", Tom Conway, is almost hit by a taxi cab driven by pretty taxi driver Patty Mitchell, Ann Rutherford. It turns out that "The Man's" mind is as blank as a fresh sheet of typewriter paper with him in a complete fog to who he is and what he did and what caused that gash that he had on his head when Patty first picked him up. Seeing the evening papers "The Man" and Patty see the headline banner news of theater producer Robert Dilling being murdered in Oceanview where "The Man" was just hobbling around. The description of Dilling's killers matches the description of "The Man" right down to his pin-striped suit that he's wearing. "The Man" together with Patty slowly uncover his identity by backtracking to where he was that evening before he fell, or was hit, on his head. Putting everything together "The Man" at first finds that he's called "Step" by his friends. Later with the unexpected help of "Step's" forgotten friend and associate Mark Evens, Lester Matthews, finds out that his real name is Ted "Step" Allison and that he checked into the Recency Hotel where Ted and Patty just came from to check out who he was in the first place.Ted finds in his hotel room a letter from a friend of his, the late Larry Tenny, about a play that he wrote called "Two O'Clock Courage" and that the play seems to be the reason that Dillings was murdered.Ted himself is almost killed later in the film, as he gets too close to who the killer is, with a bullet to his head but it was that attempt on Ted's life that brought back his memory and with that the identity of the person who murdered Dilling.Ted really had some night for himself in the movie "Two O'Clock Courage"; he loses and finds himself he ends up being arrested by the police for the murder of Robert Dillings talks his way out of being put behind bars and later solves the Dilling murder and the reason that he was killed. There's also the secondary emotional plot-line that erupts at the end of the film between the killer and his jilted girlfriend. To top it all of Ted meets falls in love with and marries lovely taxi driver Patty Mitchell; all this happens to Ted before the night was even over.Besides Richard Lane playing the bumbling reporter Haley who in the end drove his boss news editor Brant, Charles C. Wilson, almost into the loony bin the police inspector Bill Brenner, Emory Parnell,on the Dilling murder case was even funnier in a dangerous sort of way. Insp. Brenner had a very bad habit of holding his revolver pointed at almost everyone that he came in contact with in the movie. It was sheer luck that everyone in the film made it to the end without unconsciously getting themselves shot or killed by this absent-minded policemen.

Basically a light-hearted mystery programmer in the style of the 1940s, Two O'Clock Courage claims attention by virtue of having been directed by Anthony Mann, before his legendary collaboration in film noir with cinematographer John Alton. It also happens to be a pretty good movie, of its limited type, in its own right.It opens at the fog-shrouded intersection of Ocean View Drive and Arch Street where Tom Conway, looking and sounding eerily like his more successful brother George Sanders, bleeds from a head wound and can't remember who he is. Skidding to his rescue in a taxi comes game hack Ann Rutherford (a sister under the visor to On The Town's Brunnhilde Esterhazy), who becomes his sidekick even though it turns out he may be mixed up in a high-profile murder. Trying to establish his identity and what he might have done (or not done), the pair travel through a theatrical/nightlife milieu; the mystery concerns a plagiarized play written by a dead man, which shares its title with this movie.There are the staple characters of the sub-genre: the befuddled butler, the snoopy landlady, the apoplectic editor. There's also, as a society floozy, young Jane Greer (billed here as `Bettejane'). Two O'Clock Courage doesn't show much of the flair Mann would later bring to suspense, even, the following year, to Strange Impersonation. But he keeps his eye on the ball, and never lets the unraveling of the mystery take a back seat too long to the farcical episodes (which mercifully he keeps from growing too extended or too broad). All in all, it's a more satisfying effort than similar and better-known efforts from around the same time, like A Night to Remember or Lady on a Train.