Perfectly adorable

Admirable film.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Third in WB's fun Torchy Blane series. This time Torchy and Steve are about to get married but get sidetracked with another murder investigation. The particulars of this murder are a doozy. Four of Torchy's rival reporters stage a murder to stop the wedding but then the actor playing the victim actually winds up killed. Cast includes Anne Nagel, George E. Stone, William Hopper, Charley Foy, and Natalie Moorhead. Glenda Farrell and Barton MacLane are especially cute together in this one.

In 1937 Glenda Farrell was finally given her own series that completely suited her snappy and sassy personality. She was Torchy Blane and the series kicked off with "Smart Blonde" (a very apt title). "Adventurous Blonde" was the third but didn't keep up the high standard that the first programmer had started unfortunately. Farrell being Torchy was always two jumps ahead of Lt. Steve McBride (the gravel voiced Barton MacLaine) who in spite of the fact that they were supposed to be sweethearts, seemed to have a love/hate relationship going on. In the first movie, Wini Shaw was the main lady, in this one it was Natalie Moorehead, who in 1937 may have elicted a "I seem to recall that name" but now with the accessibility of pre-code movies conjures up (to me anyway) a sophisticated "other woman"!! Heroines could not neglect their man if Natalie Moorehead was in the cast!!!Here she plays Theresa Gray, who, while on a cross country train trip, is given the wrong wire by a porter. Sitting next to her is Torchy Blane - ace reporter - who happens to get her wire which is a callous message advising Theresa that Harvey Hammond is through with her!! McBride and Torchy are almost married but as his superior points out to him - "you haven't done anything for two weeks but run around acting like a love sick kid"!!! Torchy's reporter colleagues want to play a trick on her - so they invent a hoax murder involving a ham actor, Harvey Hammond, the only problem is he actually turns up dead!!!The suspects (of which there are many) are rounded up - Hugo, the butler (Anderson Lawler), Miss Brown, the nurse (Anne Nagel) and Aunt Jenny, a bed ridden invalid (Virginia Brissac) but Torchy soon realises that she is as sprightly as anyone in the house. In this confused mystery everyone is playing a part - Hugo and Miss Brown are actors who were in on the hoax and Aunt Jenny was in reality Harvey's wife who was fed up with his philandering ways.Although it was interesting to see a very youthful William Hopper long before his Perry Mason days, I agree with the other reviewers it definitely wasn't up to the first in the series. Poor Glenda didn't seem quite so adventurous in this one - it seemed to be top heavy with comedy and the murder and sleuthing took a back seat.

This is the 3rd film of the Torchy Blane series and once again Glenda Farrell and Barton MacLane are in the leads once again. The film begins with the Lieutenant (MacLane) getting a slight dressing down by his boss. It seems that since Torchy is the lieutenant's fiancée, she gets an inside scoop of crimes that other newspaper people are now complaining about--after all, should the Lieutenant's girl get stories that no other reporter has access to? In addition, the reporters decide to play a trick on the couple to get revenge--they'll stage a fake murder and make them look like idiots when they investigate. The problem is that this fake murder turns out to be a real one--and once again, Torchy gets the scoop.Throughout the film, Torchy takes the law into her own hands--making guesses and playing hunches again and again. And, since this IS a Torchy Blane film, you know that all of it will work out in the end. Unfortunately, compared to the earlier Torchy Blane films, this one more contrived and less believable. Enjoyable, sure--just not particularly outstanding in its execution.

This is the Poverty Row take on films like The Front Page/His Girl Friday, one of a series with perky Glenda Farrell playing a reporter called Torchy Blane. In this one she gets herself involved in the solving of a murder mystery: who strangled the matinée idol? Like The Front Page, there's a running gag about a postponed wedding. There are several nifty one-liners, too, and actors run in and out of scenes so fast that it's easy to forgive the implausibility of the plot, and to forget that this is all talk. It's nice to see Barton MacLane in a lead role for a change, and the supporting cast, especially character actors such as Frank Shannon, Jimmy Conlin, George Guhl and Houseley Stevenson, are worth the price of admission alone. Hardly a comedy masterpiece but there are worse ways to while away an hour. This is the second in the Torchy Blane series.