If You Want To Restore Your Pride In Being A Newspaper Reporter Or Editor Then Go Beg, Steal Or Borrow A Copy Of Deadline USA

Philip M. Stone October 27, 2009 Follow on Twitter

If you want to swell with pride at being in the newspaper game and to remind yourself of why newspapers must exist then somehow get hold of a copy of a 57-year-old movie, Deadline USA (in the UK it was just Deadline) that tells a story of a newspaper about to be sold and then closed, and why society suffers as the printed word is lost.

The movie was voted surprisingly this summer the best newspaper movie of all time in an Editor & Publisher poll, but the problem is that it is not available on DVD so it’s a matter of waiting for a classic movie channel to show it and in Europe recently that’s what TCM did. And what a joy. Yes, it is the best newspaper movie ever!

Humphrey Bogart was in the twilight of his career – when he spoke with authority as newspaper editor  Ed Hutcheson you really believed this was an editor, not an actor. And what he had to say reverberates today.

It’s not so much the plot that stays with one, but rather the fantastic lines from writer-director Richard Brooks who, before his Hollywood days, was a newspaper and broadcast journalist. And the realism of the film comes from many of the major scenes filmed at the New York Daily News, particularly the press room.

When the film was released it was to good positive reviews because it was not just Bogart that had you believing, but so did the rest of the cast.. Jim Backus, perhaps better known later for TV’s Gilligan’s Island and other comedy roles plus, of course, being the voice of Mr. Magoo, had you truly believing he was a reporter with the memorable line, “A journalist makes himself the hero of the story. A reporter is only a witness.”  What are you?

Even The New York Times enjoyed the film. “That old bad boy, Humphrey Bogart, is working our side of the street in Twentieth Century-Fox' and Richard Brooks' "Deadline, U. S. A." In this entangled melodrama, which came to the Roxy yesterday, the old tough is breathing fire and brimstone, as he has often done before, and the virulence of his aggression is bringing compounded trouble on his head. But he is doing so as a fighting champion of a free and invincible press. And, by George, the honesty of the effort rates a newspaper man's applause” –  film critic Bosley Crowther.

The movie tells the story of The Day newspaper whose staff learns via an AP story that the newspaper is to be sold. But they decide to go out in fine style taking on a mob gangster in their last three days. They get their man, but it’s the lines throughout that  stick.

For instance Bogart explains early-on that one reason for the sale is that the newspaper’s costs have risen so much. As an example, “The price of newsprint has gone up to $110 a ton” he extols, whereas he said  a few years back it was just $50. Now the numbers may have changed in the past 50 years, but the storyline hasn’t! He later explains to staff, “The heirs and the lawyers are up in the dome (executive suite) right now waiting to explain the nature of the crime (selling the paper) with facts, figures and falsehoods. One more F and they won't be drafted” (when the US had a draft for military service a medical deferment was classified as 4F).

And there were other great lines like these throughout the film. Bogart: “It's not enough anymore to give 'em just news. They want comics, contests, puzzles. They want to know how to bake a cake, win friends, and influence the future. Ergo, horoscopes, tips on the horses, interpretation of dreams so they can win on the numbers lottery. And, if they accidentally stumble on the first page... news.” So, that hasn’t changed either.

And then there’s Bogart talking about journalism as a profession as opposed to just a job. “A profession is a performance for public good. That's why newspaper work is a profession.” And he tells a want-to-be cub reporter fresh from J-School, “About this wanting to be a reporter, don't ever change your mind. It may not be the oldest profession, but it's the best.”

Perhaps the best lines come at the end of the story such as when the gangster Rienzi on the telephone threatens editor Bogart who is in the pressroom:

RIENZI: Here's some advice for you, friend: Don't press your luck. Lay off me. Don't print that story!

BOGART: What's that supposed to be -- an order?

RIENZI: If not tonight, then tomorrow. Maybe next week, maybe next year. But sooner or later, you'll catch it. Listen to me! Print that story and you're a dead man.

BOGART: It's not just me anymore. You'd have to stop every newspaper in the country, and you're not big enough for that job. People like you have tried it before -- with bullets, prison, censorship. But as long as even one newspaper will print the truth, you're finished.

And with that Bogart gives his nod to the foreman and the presses start to roll. Great stuff.

And how many of you won’t be wiping a tear when near the movie’s end the mother of a woman killed by the gangster shows up at the newspaper office with evidence that will nail the bad guy. She told Bogart she didn’t speak English before coming to America but she taught herself by reading the newspaper every day while at the same time learning to be a good citizen by reading what was going on in her town.   Bogart warns her the gangster won’t be happy with her bringing the evidence to the newspaper and she looks up at Bogart and says, “You are not afraid. Your newspaper is not afraid. I am not afraid."

Giving Bogart the tagline, “A free press is like a free life—it's always in danger.”

Newspapers, and movies about them, don’t get any better than that.