The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

***SPOILERS*** Early Humphrey Bogart flick has Bogie playing the program director Sherry Scott of the UBC radio network the self proclaimed "Voice of the People" that in fact specializes in sleaze and scandal. Needing to up it's rating the station president Bertra C. Retnolds, Robert Middlemass, comes up with this great idea of reviving the notorious Gloria Pembroke, the O.J Simpson of the 1920's,case where Gloria was found innocent in the shooting death of her drunken and abusive husband. Even though Gloria was found innocent, like O.J was, she had to change her name and go into hiding since no one, but he jury who found her innocent, believed her story.As it later turned out sleaze-ball private investigator Dr. Martin Levenwoth, Harry Hyden, tracked down Gloria, who's now calls herself Martha Carstaris, Hellen McKallar, and pretending to be a priest gets the lowdown of her shadowy past and reports back to his boss UBC program director Sherry Scott with the story. The sad thing about all this is not only exposing Martha's past to the public with the 15 part radio program "Sin Doesn't Pay" but putting her sweet and lovely daughter Edith's, Linda Perry, marriage to steel magnet Malcolm Sims,Douglas Wood, son Maclolm Jr, Carlyle Moore Jr, on the rocks. That if the truth about Linda's mom's past was ever to became pubic!****SPOILERS**** The film shows just how far people in the media will go to make a buck not caring whom they destroy in making it. It's UBC's president Bertram C. Reynolds who refused to cancel the program even when Martha and her husband Mr. Jim Carstairs, Henry O'Neill, beg him too. It was the tragedy that the show lead to that had program director Sherry Scott have a sudden change of heart. In the aftermath of what damage the show caused Scott just couldn't go on working for the UBC network. And knowing what greedy low life scum like Reynolds and Levenworth are capable of doing Scott, despite his involvement in their crimes, in the end willingly goes to court to testify against them and put the two out of the media and radio business together with himself as well.

This cheapo remake of the terrific Five Star Final suffers from terrible acting. Humphrey Bogart stars as the manager of a sleazoid radio station that is desperate to boost sagging ratings. The owner decides to have a series of morality plays written about a famous murder case from 20 years ago. So they hire the fake preacher (Harry Hayden) to track down the murderess, who was acquitted and has been living quietly under a fake name. The preacher arrive on the daughter's wedding day, but the ruthless radio station refuses to back off exposing the mother and ruining their lives.Bogart is always good. Hayden is good the the slimy preacher, and Henry O'Neill is good as the father. Everyone else is just awful. Helen McKeller wins no sympathy (crucial for the role), Linda Perry is a lousy actress, Beverly Roberts is OK but always looks old, Claire Dodd and Hobart Cavanagh have no parts, Carlyle Moore is a dud as the boy friend, Virginia Brissac is miscast as the society mother, Robert Middlemas overacts as the station owner.This one comes in under an hour but is a pale copy of the original which boasted dynamic performances by Edward G. Robinson, Aline MacMahon, Frances Starr, and Boris Karloff. But it's always worth watching Boagrt.

What a difference five years makes. This remake of "Five Star Final" (1931) came after the repeal of Prohibition and the institution of the Production Code. Consequently, the seedy speakeasy becomes a glossy cocktail bar, and the generally amoral atmosphere of the original acquires a bent to moral condemnation in the remake.Still, "One Fatal Hour" (as it was titled on TCM) has a lot going for it. It's fast, nasty as Joe Breen would allow, and borrows much of "Five Star Final"'s sharp dialogue. (I think it also borrows the set for the hapless couple's apartment.) Bogart, in a rare pre-1940 lead role, gives a first-rate performance as the news director who struggles against his own principles even as he greenlights a muckraking radio series that will ruin the lives of a rehabilitated murderess and her blameless family. Harry Hayden, as a divinity student-turned-tabloid radio host, actually improves on Boris Karloff's performance in "Five Star Final"; he's charming, genial and deadly. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast is B-level, but watchable.

I saw this last night on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). I had never heard of it before, and was quite surprised to find it so engrossing.Bogart does a star turn as a city-wise cynical editor who reluctantly goes along with his greedy radio-network boss in this incisive "B" programmer. About 12 years before he played similar city-wise cynics to perfection in movies like Deadline USA, Knock On Any Door, The Barefoot Contessa, and The Harder They Fall, Bogie already had the star qualities down pat. In order to boost ratings, and bring their somewhat high-brow programming to a more popular level, WUBC, "the Voice of America", pushes a tell-all radio mini-series about a woman who was acquitted 20 years ago by a plea of self-defense of killing her husband. Not willing to be discreet in order to save the woman's and her husband's reputations, the station uses underhanded methods to reveal all to all listeners, and as luridly as possible. As a time capsule, I also found it very illuminating of male-female mores in the workplace in the mid-1930's. Although beyond Henry O'Neill, I'm unfamiliar with the supporting cast, the players were uniformly excellent, and the direction was taut.If you like this kind of movie at all (e.g., A Face In The Crowd, An Inspector Calls, etc.), don't miss the opportunity to see this one.