Blondes at Work

Blondes at Work (1938)

*** (out of 4)

Fun fourth entry to the series has Torchy Blane (Gelnda Farrell) finding news ways to get sources even when her fiancé Lt. McBride (Barton MacLane) has made it clear he won't be giving her any scoops. She gets on a hot murder case and is able to track down the suspect but things don't go as planned. BLONDES AT WORK is another fine film in the series and I'm sure fans are really going to enjoy it even though Blane is actually somewhat a villain here. The film basically has the police trying to keep the case quiet so that they can locate the killer but Torchy, obviously just thinking of her stories, manages to keep messing up the case. I don't think even fans will agree with the way she gets her news here and the ending, which I won't ruin, is actually quite fitting. As with the previous film, this one here benefits from a pretty good story that has a couple nice twists and of course two nice leads to carry us through it. Farrell is certainly at the top of her game here as she perfectly works her comic timing. MacLane is also good in his supporting bit but it's Tom Kennedy who steals the film as the dimwit who wants to be a poet. Rosella Towne is also good in her role. The film runs a fast-paced 63-minutes and contains enough entertainment to keeps fans interesting. Bette Davis fans will probably recognize this story as it borrows quite heavily from FRONT PAGE WOMAN.

Fourth in the WB series of B movies about a fast-talking lady reporter named Torchy Blane and her cop boyfriend Steve McBride. In this one, as usual, the couple are separately investigating the same case, each trying to solve it before the other. Lightweight, enjoyable entry with the stars at their best. The scene stealer in this one is Tom Kennedy. He's a treat as the dimwitted cop Gahagan, who inadvertently helps Torchy stay one step ahead of the police. Carole Landis has a bit part. The rest of the cast includes John Ridgley, Rosella Towne, and Donald Briggs. One of my favorites in the series.

Frank Shannon as Captain McTavish feels that Barton MacLane is giving too much information to gal pal Torchy Blane so he's issued orders cutting her off from scoops. Plus it doesn't look bad if he can't solve his own cases. So Torchy is cut off.

If Shannon thinks that will stop Glenda Farrell, does he have another think coming. Farrell not only keeps scooping the cops without a bit of help from her boyfriend MacLane, she makes monkeys out of the whole police department. That includes thick as a brick Tom Geraghty and young rookie patrolman John Ridgely. And quite a few more.

As it happens she and Ridgely are the last to see a department store owner alive as he gets into a taxi. Although Farrell is resourceful she comes mighty close to obstruction of justice in her quest for the ultimate scoop.

Blondes At Work is a fair enough entry in the Torchy Blane series. The stories aren't much, but I just love the chemistry between Farrell and MacLane. Marry that girl quick Lt. McBride or pin a badge on her.

**SPOILERS** Coming up with scoop after scoop for her newspaper The Star hot-shot woman reporter Torchy Blane, Glenda Ferrell, is told by her boyfriend and fiancée Police Let. Steve McBride, Barton MacLane, to lay off the latest murder case that he's handling. As it turned out the murder victim department store tycoon Martin Spencer, Kenneth Harlan, was seen by Torchy being escorted into a cab by his friend Maitland Greer, Donald Briggs, just moments before he was found dead, in his room at the Park Plaza Hotel, from a stab wound.

With Torchy's latest scoop, Spencer's murder, hitting the front pages Steve's boss Capt. McTavish, Frank Shannon, orders him to keep away from Torchy, suspecting that he's providing her with secret police information, or else he'll end up pounding a beat in Staten Island. We soon realize that Capt. McTavish isn't really playing cricket in his concern about Torchy getting her hands on top secret police matters. Capt. McTavish is secretly working for Torchy's rival newspaper-The Daily Express-who frustrated editor-in him always being out-scooped by Torchy-Boyland, Robert Middlemass, want's him to cut off Torchy's access to top secret police investigation files.

With Greer, who was last seen with him alive, arrested in Spencers murder it looks like an open and shut case for the D.A's office and jury with Torchy, who somehow knows better, being the only dissenter! Getting the drop on the Greer murder jury, by listening in from a nearby supply closet, Torchy out maneuvers both Capt. McTavish and the Daily Express into thinking that the jury verdict is going to be innocent.

***SPOILERS*** To both Capt. McTavish and the Daily Express' surprise Greer is in fact found guilty in Spencers murder which has the newspaper's editor Boylan ending up with egg on his face in his jumping the gun on a breaking story that he never really had the facts for. And at the same time Torchy ends up behind bars for contempt in her manipulating, by planting false facts, the Greer verdict in order t screw-The Daily Express-her competition. As things soon turned out Torchy was in fact right in feeling that Greer was innocent, Spencer's killer later confessed, but by being behind bars she didn't have the time to write the story and have it make the front pages. It's there where Steve McBride came to Torchy's rescue in, after having Torchy released from jail, filing the story for her and at the same time giving Torchy all the credit!

Reporter Torchy Blane is getting all the scoops, and Captain McTavish is mad. He thinks Torchy's fiancé, Lieutenant McBride, is giving her inside police information. The rival newspaper's editor "wants to know if we're running the police department for the taxpayers or for Torchy Blane." McBride ought to keep her in line!

Glenda Farrell as Torchy is funnier than ever in this fast-moving farce with a bit of mystery tossed in. Torchy plays innocent when asked where she's getting her leads ("Oh, I don't know, those things just seem to come to me. I told you I was psychic") but has soon tracked a missing businessman to a hotel room where someone has been stabbed. Inside info or no, Torchy is consistently a step quicker than the cops.

Barton McLane is a good sport as the generally bewildered Lieutenant McBride; the character is solid enough but essentially a straight man for Torchy and for police chauffeur Gahagan.

Tom Kennedy is back as poetry-loving cop Gahagan and this time around he's keeping a diary—for "postererity," he says. He lets Torchy in on the secret diary; she asks if he has a good hiding place for it and encourages him to keep track of every little thing his boss McBride does….

The plot has a few thin spots. Could you really trace a person that easily from a single smudge of lipstick on a handkerchief? The ending is rather abrupt as well, wrapping things up in an awful hurry. However, such issues hardly matter since plot here is always secondary to the goofy character interplay. The mystery, such as it is, involves a disappearance and murder but is little more than a backdrop for the comic story of Torchy and her sources.

Not much suspense but lots of fun…. Farrell especially—hilarious and cute—appears to be having a ball.