-30- (1959)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Jack Webb

Writer:

William Bowers (writer)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

In just nine hours they put the world on your doorstep.

Plot:

Managing Editor Sam Gatlin arrives in the afternoon and departs early the next morning, having assembled a morning newspaper for Los Angeles...

Plot Keywords:

Film With Ambiguous Title | Digit In Title | Number In Title

Cast

Jack Webb	...	Sam Gatlin
William Conrad	...	Jim Bathgate
David Nelson	...	Earl Collins
Whitney Blake	...	Peggy Gatlin
Louise Lorimer	...	Lady Wilson
James Bell	...	Ben Quinn
Nancy Valentine	...	Jan Price
Joe Flynn	...	Hy Shapiro
Richard Bakalyan	...	Carl Thompson
Dick Whittinghill	...	Fred Kendall
John Nolan	...	Ron Danton
Howard McNear	...	Editor
Jonathan Hole	...	Pettifog
Richard Deacon	...	Chapman
Ronnie Dapo	...	Billy

Also Known As:

Deadline Midnight (UK)

Runtime:

USA:96 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound Recording)

Company:

Mark VII Ltd.

Trivia:

The story of the girl trapped in the Los Angeles sewer was loosely based on the real life tragedy of Kathy Fiscus of San Marino, California. On 9 April 1949, the three-year-old fell down a 90-foot deep, 14-inch wide uncapped well. After 50 hours, rescuers finally reached her, but she had already died. It was one of the first televised "media events", with more than 27 hours of the rescue recorded by television cameras. History repeated itself in 1987 when Jessica McClure fell down a well in Texas, though she was brought up alive after 58 hours.

Goofs:

Miscellaneous: After a fledgling writer turns in a news story on her first night as a reporter, the editor sends it to be typeset without even reading it.

Soundtrack:

Boy

Clichéd, but good

This movie contains virtually every cliché about the newspaper business that can be crammed into one movie. In fact, it's so clichéd, it's campy...and that makes it better than even a clichéd Jack Webb might have imagined. William Conrad is, perhaps, the ultimate cliché as the tough city editor with, ultimately, a heart of gold (or, at least, not coal). And the press agent who shows up with the shapely model (in a fur with swimsuit underneath) is the topper. There's more, but who wants to spoil the fun (even though the overriding plot is intended to be serious). The requirement for a review is 10 lines. I could go on for 100 just listing the clichés -- and the clichéd performances -- but, again, that would take the fun out of it. Enjoy. (P.S.: Some reviewers have listed -- and continue to list -- this movie as one of the worst ever made. But many of those views have softened as time has passed -- perhaps because, as I said earlier, that it's now viewed as "campy.")