A Brilliant Conflict

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

A young female reporter is fired from a big city newspaper, then decides to take over a troubled small town newspaper. She encounters difficulties with small town politics, getting advertisers to help keep the paper afloat, and issues with 1930s feminism in the resistance she receives from the town's residents to her attempts to run the newspaper.This film is amazing and not very well known. Why not? Peggy Shannon is like a Rosalind Roussell on a budget. And Sterling Holloway is here, in all his glory... is this an openly gay character? If not, it is about the closest we probably see in this era.A great story through and through, and well worth a peak if you can find a copy. It is available as a bonus feature of "Deluge", though frankly it is much better than the main film!

This is the only credit for a gent named Anton Lorenze. I suspect that name is a pseudonym as the direction is far too able to be the work of someone who walks in off the street. No-one, not even a producer on Poverty Row is going to entrust even a ten thousand dollar production to someone with absolutely no credits at all – unless of course Lorenze is himself an executive of the movie company and/or he has stage credits. I also notice that one reviewer picked fault with Peggy Shannon's performance, but I thought she was wonderful and carried the role off perfectly. The person I didn't like was Sterling Holloway. I'm not a fan of Sterling's, I admit, but in this movie he seemed to me to be particularly out of place. Claude Gillingwater, as usual, was a delight in a made-to-order role, while Edwin Maxwell did his customary convincing stint as the villain. Available on a very good Alpha DVD.

Peggy Shannon did a nice job as a reporter, Jerry Hampton, who was fired from a big city newspaper and becomes the editor of a small town paper. Shannon has a certain charm and sparkle that enhance the movie; her reporter character is not rough edged or somewhat brassy like a Torchy Blane but neither is she silly or vapid. She also has a certain comedic touch - I thought the extended scene between Sterling Halloway and her was funny and well done by both of them. The movie starts and finishes with showing the impact of power and influence on what stories newspapers will print. I can't decide if the ploy Jerry uses at the end of the movie to ensure a happy ending for the good guys was a case of quite rightly and nicely hoisting the nasty guys on their own petards or unethical. Worth a watch.

A very good second feature about a young woman, fired from her big-city newspaper job, who takes over a small town paper and makes a go of it. If you are used to seeing precode movies from big studios with large budgets, you may have issues with the barebone values of this production, but it is worth a look, if only to see if you will enjoy this sort of socially responsible movie.The strong script includes some real insight into the problems of getting advertisers, small town politics and 1930s feminism. Unhappily, Peggy Shannon, in the lead role, is not up to the part and Sterling Holloway has an obnoxious comedy part, but the rest of the cast is excellent and the issues raised will not be totally alien to the modern viewer.