Gentlemen of the Press

'Gentlemen of the Press' is one of the darkest counterculture experiences an spectator can undergo.

Wickland Snell is a righteous and workaholic star reporter of a newspaper of New York, and step by step he plunges into the obscenity of the mediocre society -he actually moves in-.

The title refers to the 'gentleness' of Wickland, about his daughter Dorothy, with him losing his mind to protect her and her husband.

During the first two acts, the movie can't really take off from being only an adaptation of a Broadway play, but near the end, the story progressively gains all kinds of shades of gray -REALLY dark tones-, to so become really absorbing.

It's a tricky movie, because its author (Ward Morehouse) was also one of those 'bloody' reporters.

Walter Houston (Snell) takes on a tough and rightful role a-la Kevin Costner, while Kay Francis (as the so lascivious Myra May) is such a femme-fatale, taking him to 'Little Hades', there in New York.

The face value of Gentlemen Of The Press is the undertow of breaking news in journalists' lives. Walter Huston as featured reporter Wickland Snell finds himself repeatedly pulled from his life by current events and looming deadlines. On the home front, wife grows old and daughter grows up. Cleverly put across with photo albums, the story is illuminated in the films' first reel. Mr. Huston delivers a fine restrained performance under Millard Webb's direction. A lack of overt histrionics immediately set this May 1929 release apart from other talkies. And this would be a more than adequate entertainment were the film confined to this plot development.

Then in walks Kay Francis (billed as Katherine Francis). You can almost hear the writers sharpening their pencils. As Myra May, she protests Snell's paper defaming her character. Smooth Snell puts her at ease, promising to take personal charge of the matter. Myra melts, and Snell will need her phone number in case he needs to get the details. Myra smolders. You won't be able to take your eyes off Myra. I couldn't wait to see what she would do next. Kay Francis gives her Myra a cool fire, confident and direct. Her lines are the mother load of innuendo.

A witty, frank script populated with broad characters keep every scene interesting. Here's a film BEGGING for RESTORATION. The only print I'm aware of is the TV syndication transfer, again done with 1:16 Movietone matte which clips off the left side of the picture. But don't let that stop you from enjoying Kay Francis' landmark performance. See this film!

Gentlemen of the Press is a very early talkie, and boy, does it show. There are long pauses in between dialogue, as though the actors are waiting for the director to talk to them or for the title card to cut them off. Director Millard Webb continually cuts off the actors' heads while framing his long shots. But, if you want to see Walter Huston and Kay Francis in their film debuts, there's only one movie you can rent.

Walter plays a newspaper man who values his career above all else. He's been completely absent from his daughter's life, with only snapshots to remind him of her appearance. After an eight-year period of no contact, he finds out about her marriage while writing about it in the paper. She comes to his office to introduce her new husband, and after a few minutes, he gets distracted by a hot tip and waves them off as he returns to his typewriter.

In the meantime, he has a lukewarm affair with society dame Kay Francis. She turns heads every time she enters a room, and Walter's perpetually drunk pal, Charles Ruggles, paws her. "Come up to my apartment sometime and fight for your honor," he slurs. If you've ever wondered why Charlie got typecast as the comic drunk in his early movies, you can trace it back to this one. This is the first movie I've seen where he actually has brown hair, and it's also his first talkie. Oh, and don't blink, otherwise you'll miss seeing Brian Donlevy for five minutes.

I couldn't bring myself to turn this movie off, even though I desperately wanted to. Nothing about it showed good quality, not even the actors who later turned out to be great professionals in every film. I couldn't believe my eyes, seeing Kay Francis and Walter Huston awkwardly swinging their arms at their sides as they try to avoid looking in the camera. Walter Huston was green, once? Where was the incomparable actor we all came to love by the time 1932 came around? It turns out, he makes an appearance in Gentlemen of the Press after all. In the very last scene makes the movie, he brings out the big guns and shows audiences his mesmerizing acting chops.

Watching a talking picture back in 1929 must have been as novel as watching a 1929 talking picture today. They're unique and so different to what followed just a year later. You feel like you're there with them learning by trial and error how the technology works.

There's a handful of talkies from '29 which were brilliant but most are like this - compared with what was produced just a couple of years later, they could be described as verging on terrible but they're nevertheless fascinating to see. Because technology, techniques and experience progressed so much in just a year films like this were probably unwatchable to a 1930 audience. For us however today it's a lovely snapshot of the evolution of modern filmmaking and indeed of 1929.

GENTLEMEN OF THE PRESS isn't a FRONT PAGE type comedy, it's more of a melodrama for men and it's actually not that bad and reasonably entertaining. Although based on a successful stage play this is not at all stagey or static. The story is about someone whose work-life balance is very much out of kilter, something still resonant today. Keep with it because the very last ten minutes are honestly one of the most genuinely emotionally shocking experiences you'll have. Nearly a hundred years later, that it feels like you've been punched in the stomach shows that despite its shortcomings, it's still worthy of watching.

And so to the shortcomings.....

1. Direction! If ever there was a good example of a making a talking picture for the first time without any experience whatsoever then this is it. Neither the director Millard Webb or his cast had made one of these before and it clearly didn't come naturally to Mr Webb. You can actually see some of the cast leaning over tables to slowly enunciate their lines into the hidden microphone; if you've seen BABYLON or SINGIN' IN THE RAIN you'll laugh when you hear the deafening sound of the doctor's shoes walking across the floor drowning out everything else. You have to view the one with a forgiving heart.

2. Kay Francis! She's truly terrible. Kay had no film experience before this so you might wonder how she landed a leading role. She was infamous as being THE party girl and when spotted late one night at a club doing her thing by the writer he thought she'd be perfect as his vamp. When Millard Webb was assigned to make this film, she decided that she would sleep with him. She knew the system and played it brilliantly.....unlike her acting. When considering how good she was just a couple of years later, she must have looked back on this with utter embarrassment. Her acting style is a combination of abject fear and staring out into the audience to speak her lines. She looks like she's in one of those videos kidnap victims are forced to make by gunpoint. (And that's not to mention that awful haircut!)

3. Walter Huston! Yes, one of early Hollywood's best actors ever doesn't seem to have a clue how to act in his first talking picture. It's so surprising to see the great man being less than fabulous but I suppose we all have to start somewhere. His theatre experience does however shine through at the film's memorable climax.

There are much more professionally made or artistically innovative movies from 1929 but if you want to see one which they were figuring out how to do it as they went along whilst still being entertaining enough to hold your attention, give this a go.

Fluent early talkie with a fairly mobile camera and some fine, restrained acting, especially from the always-amazing Walter Huston, as a star reporter who regrets how his all-consuming newspaper work has kept him away from his daughter (Betty Lawford, also very good). So he quits and takes a high-paying PR job for a mausoleum. executive, cueing some easy mausoleum jokes, and an I'm-drunk-aren't-I-hilarious turn from Charlie Ruggles, as a journalist pal. The plot takes some unpredictable turns, with a chic Kay Francis turning up as a real rotter of a femme fatale, who not only entraps Huston into an unwanted affair but makes a play for his son-in-law. But the finale, involving his daughter and a tragic turn of events, comes out of nowhere and is so sorrowful, it feels glued on. The writer, Bartlett Cormack, was a solid practitioner who also penned "The Racket" around the same time, and the welcome chorus of wisecracking, inebriated reporters might have wandered in from "The Front Page." It's a compelling little melodrama and a must for Kay Francis and Walter Huston fans, but the last seven minutes or so feel like they were dropped in from another movie.