The Adventures of Jane Arden

The Adventures of Jane Arden based on the Jane Arden comic strip with Rosella Towne starring as the Lois Lane type reporter at odds with her perpetually exasperated editor William Gargan. This was to be the first in a series of Jane Arden films had the series taken off. But it didn't.

Probably one of the reasons was a bad editing job and I doubt we'll ever see a director's cut here. Maris Wrixon who is an impoverished play girl is now working for a gang of jewel thieves when she wants out and is bumped off. Hobart Cavanaugh gets arrested for the crime and you see him and then he's just not in the film as our heroine Towne starts pursuing her own theory of the crime. Incredibly bad editing and more's the pity because Cavanaugh is always entertaining.

No mystery involved because we know who did it right at the beginning, gentleman thief James Stephenson posing as a doctor. Stephenson is the best thing about the film, a most charming, cunning, and deadly villain.

Had Warner Brothers done a better job with this film we might have seen a slew of Jane Arden films.

Rosella Towne wears clothes beautifully, moves well, is pretty, and has great comic timing. Why had I never heard of her before this turned up and what happened to her career?

This is an entertaining romantic comic newspaper crime story. Maris Wrixon is a chic bad girl who reforms a little late and James Stephenson, always good, is conniving as the heart throb of a smuggler/killer.

But it's Towne's movie.l And three cheers for her!

A society girl is slain by a criminal gang. The police has their scape goat but NYC reporter Jane Arden does not believe them. Arden refuses to write the story and gets fired for it. She gets a tip to a meeting. The firing is fake and they are joined by a jewelry investigator. She goes undercover to catch the real killers with stolen jewelry supplied by the investigator.

I don't understand the fake firing. Is there a point to that other than some contrived writing? The firing should be real and Arden should go investigating on her own. Ignoring that part, the story is fine. It's functional. I don't know this IP. I've never heard of it. I still don't understand the fake firing.

Fun B movie, with Rosella Towne, a real find. She had a very short career, retiring after marrying a screenwriter, but you can see she's got what it takes here.

This was intended to be the first of a series, based on a comic strip, but it didn't happen.

Arden is a reporter, working for William Gargan. She goes undercover to investigate a jewelry smuggling ring.

Unfortunately, the head honcho (James Stephenson) learns her true identity almost immediately. Since they are on board a ship bound for France, she has nowhere to run.

Fast-moving and entertaining. James Stephenson entered films late, after a stage career but died in 1941.

1939 is generally considered Hollywood's greatest year. No one will ever list "Jane Arden" as one of the classics made that year, but it shows that several rungs down from the likes of "Gone With the Wind" or "Wuthering Heights" the studios were also churning out dependably entertaining little movies to fill up theater bills. Director Terry O. Morse (who was primarily an editor) keeps the action moving along briskly, and the plot, while hardly original, is actually one that makes sense and is easy to follow, unlike the overly convoluted plots in many similar films. The chase finale, on horse drawn carriages, seems to be taking place in the Wild West rather than Bermuda, the film's alleged setting, but that's a minor quibble.

One of the hallmarks of B (and C) movies of that era was the quality of the performances you get even from a "no name" cast. Dependable second tier action hero William Gargan is very good here, as is suave villain James Stephenson. (In an A movie the part might've gone to James Mason). Rosella Towne, previously unknown to me, does a solid job as the lead. Too bad this movie never spawned a series, ala "Torchy Blaine." I also really enjoyed the comic relief provided by Dennie Moore as the heroine's loopy sidekick. Moore, probably best known as the loud mouthed manicurist who spills the bean in "The Women" (another great 1939 movie), has a bit of a Gracie Allen vibe, comically enhanced by her New York accent.

A few reviewers have wondered whatever happened to Rosella Towne. It was actually fairly common for "minor" actresses of that period to be very busy for a few years, then retire while still young. I think in many cases they saw their careers going nowhere, and tired of being on the Hollywood treadmill (possibly including the casting couch?) decided that marriage and family was a better long term option. (Though Towne was young to retire at 24. Many actresses stuck it out until at least their late 20s).