not horrible nor great

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.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

A man is deeply wronged by smart businessmen and acts upon it. He is morally in the right, since the culprit being acted upon would go on with his mayhem if he was not stopped and there was only this way to stop him.I cannot tell much more without Writing a spoiler but I wanted to Review this film because it tells about a moral code that seems lost today. Today everybody in America seems so committed to business that they would not react like the man above because I hear of no such stories although there must be a billion of them around and seemingly nobody is reacting on them.Maybe it will happen some time and then it will come like a big Avalanche and sweep most of it Clean - who knows? If it happens though, it will be the end of all business and the beginning of decency.

Spencer Tracy as a star New York reporter in a murder mystery that starts out as a fast-pace comedy and gradually turns dramatic.You'll recognize many of the faces in the supporting cast, even if you don't recognize the names. It's Jimmy Stewart's first film. He's "Shorty", the new reporter. Lionel Atwill gives the only performance in his life where he shows something resembling compassion, instead of his usual clipped authoritarianism.The cop at the merry-go-round is played by James Flavin. A native of Maine and a graduate of West Point, Flavin usually played Irish cops. Actually, he played nothing but Irish cops, and all cops in Hollywood in the 30s and 40s were played by James Flavin. Even the word "flavinoid" was coined to describe a person resembling a cop played by James Flavin. A performance that deliberately spoofs Flavin's notion of a cop is known in the trade as a "riboflavin," originally "rib of Flavin." You don't believe it? Look it up in Wikipedia.I'm trying to avoid any details of the plot because the solution to the mystery may come as a surprise.The first half hour is a shameless rip off of "The Front Page". Even the set design seems to replicate the press room in the play, or at any rate in "His Girl Friday." The pace isn't as fast in "The Murder Man" but still everyone rushes around, shouting fabricated stories into phones. It seems to call for bouncy Jimmy Cagney but he was busy at Warners and perhaps Tracy was better suited to the events leading up to the Big Reveal.Tracy's slouching figure is not exactly heroic. He's a star reporter, so they keep saying, but he disappears for days on end while on a major bender. At first his drunken impertinence is played for laughs. He and his editor at the New York Star grumble at each other, like Clark Gable drunkenly calling his editor a "big palooka" at the opening of "It Happened One Night." At first it seems like just another cheap movie with a fine cast, but after the writers have worked through their imitations and gotten the fake jokes out of the way, it turns rather interesting.

I should preface my comments by saying that Spencer Tracy is one of my two very favorite movie actors. The first time I watched this film, I panned it. Today I watched it again, and I'm going to revise my review a bit.The problem with this film is not the acting. Spencer Tracy -- in his first MGM film -- does rather well in that category. There are times that, without words, Tracy characterizes a man with deep inner turmoil, which is exactly what this film needed. Virginia Bruce does well as the love interest. Lionel Atwill is acceptable as a police investigator. James Stewart has one of the most irrelevant roles of his career here, but then again, it was his very first film. The problem here also isn't the general story line. In a general sense, it works.But, as they say, the devil is in the details. For example, yes, reporter Tracy could seemingly report the news before it even happened...well, while we later learn that he knew things first hand, he didn't know how a police detective or a lawyer or a judge would react to certain events, so a newspaper -- even back then -- wouldn't be printing stories that might very well not pan out as reported. I don't expect film trials to be realistic, but here, each lawyer asked each witness one, or at most two, questions. Totally unrealistic. And then there's the first 10 minutes of the film -- a total waste of celluloid and adds little to the story; once Tracy shows up...asleep on a carousel, it does get more interesting, but everything is just a little too convenient for Tracy's character. But the, without warning, the last 20 minutes of the film comes alive as we find out that Tracy is the actual killer.With a good manuscript, this could have been a great film...but you have to at least give some hints to the audience that something is amiss. Not so here. The first half was so bad, that were Tracy not a personal favorite, I would have turned the film off.So watch the film to see great acting by Spencer Tracy. Tolerate the script.

I predict that when junk like Big Brother and The Weakest Link are gone and forgotten from our TV screens movies of the vintage and caliber of `The Murder Man' will still be providing us with superb entertainment.I love these old thirties `Newspaper dramas' which probably culminated with the sublime `His Girl Friday' and this one stands up well despite lack of realism. Did New York papers really produce fresh editions all day long? Come to think of it perhaps they did in the days pre-TV.I agree with the many judges who rate Spencer Tracy one of the greatest of all screen actors but feel he goes a bit over the top here, he certainly reined in his performances later. On the other hand James Stewart in his debut (?) appears fully formed with all the shy gawky charm which made him a star for the next fifty years already apparent.`The Murder Man' is an excellent fast-moving film with a twist in the plot that I challenge you to pick. See this one if you can.