AllMovie

Prolific character actor Ed Lauter enjoys one of his few starring roles in this made-for-TV mystery yarn. Set in the 1940s, the film casts Lauter as Bud Delaney, a former policeman who was bounced from the force after being framed by a mysterious higher-up. As he tries to track down the person responsible for his firing, Delaney keeps food on the table by working as a house detective in a seedy Hollywood hotel, moonlighting as a private eye. Along the way, he gets mixed up in the theft of a movie star's jewelry and the murder of a pompous gambler--two seemingly diverse crimes that are actually, and inextricably, linked together. Originally telecast April 19, 1975 by NBC, Last Hours Before Morning was the pilot film for the unsold weekly series Delaney.