JohnHowardReid Director: GREGORY LA CAVA. Dialogue director: Frank Reicher. Screenplay: Walter De Leon. Dialogue: Frank Reicher. Adapted by Jack Jungmeyer from the stage play by George S. Brooks. Photography: Arthur Miller. Production manager: Lucky Humberstone. Assistant director: Paul Jones. Sound recording: D.A. Cutler, Clarence M. Wickes.Copyright 26 September 1929 by Pathé Exchange. New York opening at the Colony: 5 October 1929. 7 reels. 6,028 feet. 66 minutes. Available on a 9/10 Grapevine Video DVD.COMMENT: Like the stage play, the whole action of the movie takes place on the one set. Admittedly, it's quite a large set, much bigger than a theatre could handle, but it's not very glamorous and does tend to out-stay its welcome. Nonetheless, I'm told that this is what a real newspaper office actually looked like back in 1929. More surprising still is the information that the reporters and their behavior are accurately depicted. Certainly - with a notable exception - the movie is competently acted. The exception, sad to say, is Carole Lombard who does absolutely nothing with her role at all, and looks about as glamorous as a street cleaner. Maybe she could point a finger at the wardrobe mistress and photographer, Arthur Miller, for her drab appearance, but her lack of spark and animation can surely be blamed on the director, Gregory La Cava. Yet some years later, she and La Cava got together for a movie that turned out to be the highlight of both their careers - My Man Godfrey (1936). But while La Cava's handling here is no more than routine, cameraman Miller brilliantly overcomes many early talkie, sound-proof booth problems.

Cristi_Ciopron A crime comedy drama with R. Armstrong and Carol Lombard (before a 3rd vowel was added), she has more of a supporting part, which she plays in her dignified way, a bit otherworldly, spectral, very classy, her generic character in her early sound movies, a distinguished young woman; she also seemed determined on her ascending way to stardom. The supporting cast is very good.The life at a newspaper headquarter is shown as cool, but isn't glamorized. The age was more stoic, and the life's hardships are confessed, admitted, allowed, expressed; the sets show a dirty editorial office, with the throng, garbage and untidiness, and the threat of unemployment. The leading actor plays a reporter fond of his profession and of drinking.Armstrong, a very believable leading player, could be a dynamo, even as a drained journalist. I know that his reputation paled, faded afterward, which is unfair. He was credible in each leading role he has made.The movie, co-written by DeLeon, is exciting and refreshing. The _subjacent play seems good.

arfdawg-1 Steve Banks is a hard-drinking newspaper reporter. His wife Margaret, a reporter for a rival paper, threatens to divorce him if he doesn't quit the drinking that is compromising his career. Steve pursues a story about drug dealers even when his editor fires him. When the editor is murdered, Steve is accused of the killing. But Steve has an ace up his sleeve that may save him from the electric chair. Does this sound like a comedy? That's where IMDb puts it. It's a weird and dumb movie.

joeshoe89 This adult (for it's day) themed drama of a hard drinking reporter (who is also hard brawling) Robert Armstrong and his wife Carol(e) Lombard who is also a reporter and wants to divorce him is faced paced and contains not only speakeasies and drinking but a plot about the murder of a drug addict and her dealer. The drug plot line doesn't really do much but make the whole thing a bit more sleazy. The killer is caught because he is recorded on a cylinder when he doesn't know it. The reporter's boss is the murder victim. The reporter is framed by the murderer who is there at the newspaper where he commits the crime while another one of the reporter's bosses is on the phone! All ends well when Carol(e) discovers that Armstrong has switched to tea from booze in his flask which leads to a loving happy ending (he gets a raise too!).