Linbeymusol
Wonderful character development!
Stevecorp
Don't listen to the negative reviews
Livestonth
I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible
ActuallyGlimmer
The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.
kidboots
Ann Rutherford spent most of her MGM years being Polly Benedict, Andy Hardy's biggest fan. In most of the Andy Hardy movies she usually had to take a back seat to up and coming actresses such as Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Esther Williams etc, but by the end the humbled Andy would always be back in her arms. Obviously, she tired of these and couldn't wait to leave MGM. She hoped free lancing would give her more adult roles but it wasn't to be. She just had a very bubbly personality and her part as Patty, the perky taxi driver who helps amnesia victim Tom Conway was exactly the type of role she did best. Directed by Anthony Mann and with a screenplay by Gelett Burgess, noted American humorist and inventor of the "blurb", "Two O'Clock Courage" starred Tom Conway, in between his Falcon assignments, as a nameless amnesia victim who may just be mixed up in the murder of a Broadway producer. He is encouraged to find out the truth by Patty, the bubbly taxi driver, who almost runs him over. There are more laughs than drama with Richard Lane as a bumbling newspaper reporter. Conway finds out he is really Theodore Allison, who has been hired by the mother of Laurence Kenny, author of the play "Two O'Clock Courage" to find out what happened to it. The play has been plaguerized by the producer and retitled "Menace" where said producer has been pocketing all the royalties.This movie was also the debut of Bettejane Greer, soon to be known as Jane Greer - she had the role of Helen a sulky nightclub girl and she certainly made a splash with her limited screen time. Jean Brooks proved again that she was an attractive actress who should have been more well known. She certainly was more stunning as a brunette ("The Seventh Victim"). Unfortunately she was almost at the end of her brief career as RKO's "resident neurotic of the Bs" according to Doug McClelland.
wes-connors
Finding himself with a bloodied head, and suffering from amnesia, suave Tom Conway is nearly run over by pretty cab driver Ann Rutherford (as Patty Mitchell). Riding around, Mr. Conway discovers clues to his identity, including five hundred dollars in his suit pocket. A news flash connects Conway to recent murder, but Ms. Rutherford doesn't think her passenger is guilty. The pair try to solve the murder mystery while love blooms. Director Anthony Mann isn't as artful as in later years. "Two O'Clock Courage" turns out to be the name of a play that figures in the plot. By the time the mystery is solved, it's not very interesting. Fortunately, the well-endowed Rutherford, Jane Greer (as Helen Carter), and Jean Brooks (as Barbara Borden) are around to keep it looking good.****** Two O'Clock Courage (4/13/45) Anthony Mann ~ Tom Conway, Ann Rutherford, Jane Greer, Jean Brooks
David (Handlinghandel)
This came before Anthony Mann's famous, unique and quirky noir. By the time it was made, there had already been many authentic films noir. However, this updates what had been a formula throughout the thirties: the romantic/comic/mystery. There is romance. There is some comedy. But instead of mystery: We have here a true film noir. (The difference between this and other entries in the genre makes the importance of a good director very clear.) It begins with Tom Conway, in an excellent performance, looking at a sign noting an intersection of two streets. He doesn't know where there are, where he is. Or, even, who he is. Amnesia, yes indeed.Now the comedy: Ann Rutherford, a female cab driver, happens by and helps him out. She calls her taxi Harry and, later, people get confused and think Harry might be the name of a suspect.Though this has its light moments, it is a dark little movie. (And little it is, at just a bit longer than an hour.) We have a comic newspaperman and a semi-comic police officer. But we have some genuine bad guys too, and some women who are right out of the noir canon as well.Among these is Jane Greer in a very early appearance. Though her role is small, she grabs out attention. The camera loves her, almost in the way it was to love a very different sort of performer: Marilyn Monroe. Though Greer doesn't have a lot to do or a whole lot of screen time, when she's around, we can't take our eyes off her. Now, there was real (and sadly underused) star!
sol1218
**SPOILERS** Walking around the almost empty streets in the dead of night "The Man", Tom Conway, is almost hit by a taxi cab driven by pretty taxi driver Patty Mitchell, Ann Rutherford. It turns out that "The Man's" mind is as blank as a fresh sheet of typewriter paper with him in a complete fog to who he is and what he did and what caused that gash that he had on his head when Patty first picked him up. Seeing the evening papers "The Man" and Patty see the headline banner news of theater producer Robert Dilling being murdered in Oceanview where "The Man" was just hobbling around. The description of Dilling's killers matches the description of "The Man" right down to his pin-striped suit that he's wearing. "The Man" together with Patty slowly uncover his identity by backtracking to where he was that evening before he fell, or was hit, on his head. Putting everything together "The Man" at first finds that he's called "Step" by his friends. Later with the unexpected help of "Step's" forgotten friend and associate Mark Evens, Lester Matthews, finds out that his real name is Ted "Step" Allison and that he checked into the Recency Hotel where Ted and Patty just came from to check out who he was in the first place.Ted finds in his hotel room a letter from a friend of his, the late Larry Tenny, about a play that he wrote called "Two O'Clock Courage" and that the play seems to be the reason that Dillings was murdered.Ted himself is almost killed later in the film, as he gets too close to who the killer is, with a bullet to his head but it was that attempt on Ted's life that brought back his memory and with that the identity of the person who murdered Dilling.Ted really had some night for himself in the movie "Two O'Clock Courage"; he loses and finds himself he ends up being arrested by the police for the murder of Robert Dillings talks his way out of being put behind bars and later solves the Dilling murder and the reason that he was killed. There's also the secondary emotional plot-line that erupts at the end of the film between the killer and his jilted girlfriend. To top it all of Ted meets falls in love with and marries lovely taxi driver Patty Mitchell; all this happens to Ted before the night was even over.Besides Richard Lane playing the bumbling reporter Haley who in the end drove his boss news editor Brant, Charles C. Wilson, almost into the loony bin the police inspector Bill Brenner, Emory Parnell,on the Dilling murder case was even funnier in a dangerous sort of way. Insp. Brenner had a very bad habit of holding his revolver pointed at almost everyone that he came in contact with in the movie. It was sheer luck that everyone in the film made it to the end without unconsciously getting themselves shot or killed by this absent-minded policemen.