Two Against the World

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.

In this drama from Warner Brothers and director William C. McGann, a radio station, looking for a ratings boost, decides to dredge up an old scandal to use as the basis for a salacious program, leading to tragedy. Station manager Sherry Scott (Humphrey Bogart) and his secretary Alma (Beverly Roberts) decide to try and right the wrong.

This is a cheap, less-than-an-hour remake of 1931's Five Star Final, with the setting switched from newspaper office to radio station. It manages to lose the emotional heft of the earlier film, and the rote direction and condensed script don't allow Bogart to do much with a role that Edward G. Robinson played so well previously. Beverly Roberts came across as a less-talented, more-grating Mercedes McCambridge. I'd recommend this one for Bogart completists only.

I started watching this film, "Two Against the World," then thought I'd seen it, and consequently found out it's a remake of "Five Star Final." It's been a while, but the story is basically the same. Humphrey Bogart plays Sherry Scott, the manager of a radio station. His boss suggests that may he's aiming the programming above the heads of the audiences. "You could sit on a toadstool and be above this one," Bogie sneers. The station owner wants a serial based on a twenty-year-old murder case, in which a woman killed her husband but the homicide was found to be justifiable.

The woman, now Edith Carstairs (Linda Perry) at this point is married to a banker (Henry O'Neill) and their daughter (Helen MacKellar) is about to be married to a man from a very good family (Carlyle Moore, Jr.). When the show starts to air on the radio, Edith, whose daughter knows nothing of her past, begs her husband to do something about it. He tries, but to no avail.

This film is an indictment against tabloid radio, as opposed to what we have today -- tabloid everything. Bogart is good in a real '30s melodramatic role, and Beverly Roberts has a nice turn as the know-it-all secretary. Linda Perry is sympathetic as Edith.

I think "Five Star Final" is slightly better, but this film, for its time, was well done.

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.

Jack Warner was a movie mogul who never let a good story go to waste. After doing an acclaimed version of Five Star Final with Edward G. Robinson four years earlier, Warner Brothers did a cut rate B picture version, shifting the location to a Fox News like radio station.

Humphrey Bogart steps into Robinson's role as the programming director of the radio station where the owner has a new idea for ratings. He commissions a dramatization of an old murder to be done as a multi-part serial over several weeks.

Helen MacKellar is the woman in question. She killed her husband and a jury acquitted her. Since then she's been living quietly, married again with a daughter. The daughter, Linda Perry, is about to be married to the son of a steel tycoon and she knows nothing about her mother's past.

After MacKellar and her husband Henry O'Neill try every means of pressure to bring to bear against the radio station, they fail and tragedy results.

If it all sounds melodramatic, take my word for it, it is. Still it has Humphrey Bogart in it and there's a nice performance by Harry Hayden who is the genius behind the program in question. Boris Karloff did the part in Five Star Final, but Hayden is fine as the sanctimonious fraud.

Really though for dedicated fans of Bogey.