Dead Reckoning (1947).
John Cromwell, US 1947
Print source: Library of Congress, Culpeper, VA
Running time: 102 minutes
About the print
This copyright deposit print from the Library of Congress does show some changes with the audio track, as it switches from variable area to variable density midway through reel—listen for change in volume. There are slight emulsion cracks along the edges and a slight curl toward the emulsion, as well as intermittent edge creases. Shrinkage: 0.63%
About the film
“There are a lot of things about the script of Dead Reckoning that an attentive spectator might find disconcerting, but the cumulative effect of the new Humphrey Bogart slug ’em–love ’em and leave ’em picture at Loew’s Criterion is all on the good side of entertainment. Old ‘Bogey’ takes the drubbing of his cinematic life from a tough, psychopathic character who delights in ‘messing up’ his victims to the strains of sweet music, but the revenge our hero ultimately enjoys is a dilly and, correct us if we’re wrong, sets something of a new high in savage melodramatics.”
— T. M. P., New York Times, January 23, 1947
“In Columbia’s homicidal orgy now on view at the Earle, Mr. Bogart is cast as Capt. Rip Murdock, of the paratroopers, intent—after the first reel—on solving the mysterious disappearance of his sergeant, Johnny Drake, on the eve of receiving the Congressional Medal. Miss Scott is the languorous blonde, Coral Chandler, of whom Johnny prattled incessantly in both his day and night dreams—that throaty love song, purling from her gentle lips, the scent of jasmine in her hair, etc., etc. Between them, they churn up as sanguinary a yarn of violence and murder as ever compounded high nervous tension or challenged credulity.”
— Nelson B. Bell, Washington Post, April 18, 1947