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.
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.
