Darkness Before Dawn [Or The SundayAfternoon Movie...]"Danger Signal [1945]..."Starring...

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Danger Signal is a 1945 film noir starring Faye Emerson and Zachary Scott. It was adapted from the novel of the same name by Phyllis Bottome.^[1]

Plot

A mysterious artist, Ronnie Mason, steals a dead woman's wedding ring and money and leaves a fake suicide note. Her husband, Thomas Turner, believed his wife might have been seeing Mason behind his back.

Mason leaves town, changes his name to Marsh and rents a room in the house of Hilda Fenchurch and her younger sister Anne. To the consternation of professor Andrew Lang, who loves Hilda, she falls for Marsh, the new tenant.

The scheming Marsh learns that it is Anne who might inherit a of money, so he suddenly switches his affections toward her. Hilda is jealous and suspicious. She plots to lure Marsh to a beach house and poison him.

[Spoiler Alert] "Danger Signal..." Ending

Cast

• Faye Emerson as Hilda Fenchurch
• Zachary Scott as Ronnie Mason
• Richard Erdman as Bunkie Taylor (as Dick Erdman)
• Rosemary DeCamp as Dr. Jane Silla
• Bruce Bennett as Dr. Andrew Lang
• Mona Freeman as Anne Fenchurch
• John Ridgely as Thomas Turner
• Mary Servoss as Mrs. Fenchurch
• Joyce Compton as Kate
• Virginia Sale as Mrs. Crockett

Critical reception

Bosley Crowther, the film critic for The New York Times, panned the film and wrote, "A woman scorned and a handsome cad whose romantic impulses fluctuate according to the size of a lovely lady's are apt to do the strangest things, especially in diluted little melodramas such as Danger Signal, ...Sometimes, too, scenarists let such plots get out of hand and wander perilously close to boredom, so close, in fact, that the director resorts to one of those screeching-tire automobile races against time—and death—in what is obviously a last desperate attempt to overcome narrative ."^[2]

Film critic Dennis Schwartz also was not complimentary, "This routine noir feature just doesn't cut it -- its story is too implausible and it lacks proper tension...The story simply didn't add up, but its quick pace helped move things along. Zachary Scott can always be counted on to give a competent performance. But nothing can save this film from mediocrity. It's a febrile attempt to study a psychopath."^[3]

References

1. ^ Danger Signal at the Internet Movie Database
2. ^ Crowther, Bosley. The New York Times, film review, November 22, 1945. Last accessed: February 8, 2010.
3. ^ Schwartz, dennis. "Ozus' World Movie Reviews", film review, May 20, 2000. Last accessed: February 8, 2010.

External links

• Danger Signal at the Internet Movie Database
• Danger Signal at the TCM Movie Database
• Danger Signa trailer at TCM Media Room