Headline Hunters

I guess William Witney wished to make a film in the line of some Samuel Fuller's movies, speaking of journalists fighting against crime and corruption, but more in his screenplays than in his own features. So said, I expected a bit more from a Bill Witney's film. It is talkative and fortunately short and not totally without charm. It is rather rare to find out, and Republic Pictures are usually easy to purchase. But there are still some William Witney that I look for, I guess more interesting than this one. But rare doesn't necessarily means good.... And that film is the best example. Just rare, for gem diggers. The final fight permits to Witney to show his skills in such sequences, the serial director and its terrific fight scenes, sort of choregraphy. Witney is the greatest serial maker of all times.

Cooper is the new hot-shot reporter, Cameron, in one of his few non-western roles is his mentor. Nothing new here, except that one gets the feeling that Republic was pushing Cooper as an alternative to Brando or Dean in the early 50s.

'Headline Hunters' is a run of the mill b-class movie of 1955, from the studios of 'Republic Pictures'.

Because its director, William Witney, and the main star (Rod Cameron as Hugh Woodruff) stemmed from the western genre, this movie can't escape from its cliches.

Whereas there is a rough main character (Woodruff) whose friendly feelings prevail and is redeemed in the happy end, there also is a crucial fight in a saloon-like place.

The profession of journalism (still very powerful in the 1950s) is much distorted because of such a premise, nevertheless its simple story is very coherent, even including colorful socio-political twists.

By 1955, 75 percent of households in the USA already had a TV set, and it's clear that this hour-long movie was meant specifically for broadcast.

Ben Cooper's first assignment straight out of journalism school is to get an interview with a man who is immediately blown up in his car. His next scoop comes from veteran reporter Rod Cameron and it gets him fired and blacklisted around the city. The one exception is at a financial paper where they just print records. He's picking up the session's takings at night court, when a man is arraigned for blowing up the guy from his first story. He doesn't want a lawyer, and pleads guilty.... in Spanish. Cooper, who speaks Spanish, knows the interpreter lied.

It's one of those stories of reporters chasing down corruption and saving the city. It's been done many times, and this one, under the direction of William Witney is fast and efficiently directed, with the cynicism of the reporters ratcheted up into outright nastiness. With Julie Raymond Greenleaf, Stanley Blystone, and Joe Besser.

By 1955 Republic was not the studio it had been during its heyday in the late 1930s and through the 1940s. They continued to produce well-made, low-budget programmers--although a lot fewer than in past years-- but their B series westerns were over, and the studio made its last two serials that year. Probably not much money or advertising was put behind HEADLINE HUNTERS, a film which after all played much like a TV show one could see for free at home. However, director William Witney--the man who helmed so many classic serials and westerns at Republic--manages to coax good performances out of Rod Cameron as an alcoholic, one-time-hotshot reporter who has lost most of his principles over the years, and Ben Cooper (whose boyish enthusiasm reminds me of the young Tab Hunter, certainly not Brando or Dean!, but who is fine nonetheless) as a college-graduate cub reporter who has principles but lacks experience. While much of the film is a predictable hard-boiled B-movie, the script sometimes rises above that and touches upon some important issues. Cooper's speech to Cameron after a joke Cameron plays on Cooper causes Cooper to be fired is an excellent statement that sounds like something out of Death of a Salesman, and the plot element about the Mexican-American man who is framed for a murder he knew nothing about, and who is taken advantage of because he doesn't speak English and because the court translator is crooked, got me hoping the film would veer off into some serious social commentary (unfortunately, it didn't). This is the kind of film which is a solid B programmer, but which has moments here and there that transcend the production-line nature of its making. Ben Cooper is actually the main star of the film, with Cameron first becoming an unintentional mentor and then a barrier to Cooper. In the end, both men grow considerably from the experience. Nothing original here, but the film is better made than it needed to be and deals with questions still relevant today. (The film also features soon-to-be Stooge JOE BESSER in a colorful role as the coroner!)