Surprisingly incoherent and boring

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

****SPOILERS**** Edward G. Robinson as hard hitting editor of the New York Mercury newspaper Bruce Coprey bites off more then he can chew when he starts going after his silent partner in the paper big time mobster Merrill Lambert, Edward Arnold. This ends up with Corey's star reporter young 23 year old Tommy Jarvis, Wittiam T. Orr, being kidnapped by Lambert's hoods and threatened to be disappeared, or murdered, by them unless Corey hands over his 50% of the newspaper to Lambert. It was by Tommy discovering an insurance & loan shark racket that Lambert was involved in that was the straw that broke the camel's back as far as Lambert was concerned. Now taking off the gloves and playing hard ball newspaper editor Corey resorts to the same tactics that his unholy partner was involved in with him freeing Tommy from Lambert's clutches even if he has to kill to do it.Even though the Mercury was a smashing success publishing tabloid like news stories editor Corey just couldn't help going after his partner on the paper Merrill Lambert who he felt was an insult to everything that America stands for. In turn by going on a holy crusade against Lambert Corey himself ended up being not that much better hen he is. You seem to notice that Corey was really enjoying what he was doing to expose Lambert and his bookie insurance gambling and loan shark rackets but was doing it for his own self gratification not to really help those victimized by them. In fact Cory like to do some illegal gambling on his own which ended up getting him the cash he needed to start up his hard hitting against crime newspaper in the first place. With Tommy's life now in danger because of his attempts to expose and have indited his partner in the newspaper Merrill Lambert Corey goes all out to free him even at the expense of his both reputation as well as life to do it.****SPOILERS**** After getting the job done by whacking Lambert, who in fact tried to whack him, and getting Tommy freed Corey takes a trans Atlantic flight, that his newspaper is sponsoring, with famed French pilot Molyneaux, Marcel Dailo, across the Atlantic Ocean only to fly into a violent sea storm and be lost at sea. This not only confirms Corey's reputation as a fighter against crimes but keeps him from being arrested and indited for Lambert's murder which was in fact a case of self defense. As for Tommy Jarvis he can now go back to work replacing Corey as the editor of the Mercury newspaper and continue the work, in fighting and exposing crime, that his good friend the late or lost at sea Bruce Corey started.

Fresh from World War I, Edward G. Robinson has all kinds of new ideas about his chosen profession of journalism. But his old newspaper won't see things his way. Not discouraged, but needing cash he gets it from Edward Arnold a gangster with whom he becomes Unholy Partners with.Although Arnold is at first a silent partner and gives Robinson a free hand with the paper, it's not a partnership that in any way can last. Robinson, and more particularly reporter William T. Orr, starts looking into the activities of Arnold's friends and later Arnold. And then Orr becomes interested in Laraine Day who is a nightclub singer that Arnold has taken a kind of lease out on.The whole film builds toward the inevitable showdown of Arnold and Robinson and the two really dominate the film, the other players barely getting any innings in their performances. Arnold is a very careful man in maintaining a respectable front and he sees the possibilities in controlling a large media outlet. Not unlike that other Arnold film character from 1941, D.B. Norton from Meet John Doe.Charles Dingle who is a favorite character actor of mine is in Unholy Partners. But he's in a very subdued role who Arnold has under his thumb by controlling Dingle's gambling debts. Dingle's not at all the arrogant and pompous man he usually plays. And I miss that.Robinson and Arnold make quite a good pair of matched adversaries. Unholy Partners showed they should have done more work together.

This fleet and raffish newspaper melodrama was released the same year as Citizen Kane and in its far more modest way is almost as much fun. Like Kane (and dozens of ‘30s potboilers before it, most churned out by ink-stained wretches come west for a piece of the Hollywood action), it's a cautionary reminder of the roughhouse beginnings of the Fourth Estate.Reporter Edward G. Robinson, overseas winning The Great War, started a peppy servicemen's paper The Doughboy. When he returns to New York, he wants to run the same sort of rag – a tabloid for the straphangers. `The war's done things to people,' he tells his old-school editor. `We've made life cheap. and that makes emotions cheap...There's no privacy left...Keyholes are to look through.'But getting start-up money proves hard, and he ends up striking a bargain with big-time gangster Edward Arnold, who'll stay the silent partner. But when Robinson's let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may style threatens Arnold's interests, the partners become adversaries. `What people want to put in papers is advertising,' Robinson lectures Arnold. `What they want to keep out is news.' After Arnold tries to strong-arm his way into control of the paper, Robinson vows to put him out of business.LeRoy was an old hand at filming quick-and-dirty dramas that rested, however lightly, on timely social issues. So he predictably does as well (if not a mite better) as he did a decade earlier with Robinson in Five Star Final. Other players include Laraine Day, Marsha Hunt and William T. Orr, but Robinson and Arnold dominate, as they should. The story takes a clumsy and fanciful turn or two near the end (with Robinson suddenly delivering a reverent paean to the press at odds with everything he stood for), though even these twists echo big stories of the roaring ‘20s. The closing sentiment of Unholy Partners, however, is a dubious one: That the `tabloid age is over.' A pass through the supermarket checkout aisle or a few clicks of the television remote show how laughable that prediction was.

Potentially interesting story of go-ahead newspaperman Robinson and gangster Arnold as co-owners of groundbreaking tabloid newspaper, wrecked by reducing almost everything to melodrama. Despite the shadowy George Barnes cinematography and great performances by leads and supporting cast, the glossy MGM house style takes the sort of ripped-from-headlines story that director Leroy used to do at Warner Brothers -- often starring Robinson -- and reduces it to mush.