The Adventures of Jane Arden

A fast paced, short (one hour) film. It is one of those "B" films from Warner Brothers in the 1930's and it is very enjoyable. The lead actress, Rosella Towne, is quite good in the lead role. Wonder why she never made it big in Hollywood? One will never know. The plot is as old as the hills, all about a female newspaper reporter on the trail of jewel smugglers, but this is a still a treat to watch. I recommend this little film!!

"The Adventures of Jane Arden" is an orphan film: It was supposed to be the first in a series about a popular comic strip heroine, but the series never got rolling.

Audiences presumably didn't warm up to this movie, but it's hard to understand why. Compared to most of the "B" cheapies of its time, it's excellent. Though it's short (about an hour), it starts with a bang and rolls right along. And its obscure star, Rosella Towne, is really good.

Jane Arden, spunky girl reporter, is said to have been the inspiration for the later but better-remembered comic strip character Brenda Starr. Jane's strip died out sometime in the 1960s, but judging from her brief film career, I wish she were still around. It was a pleasure making her acquaintance.

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.

Rosella Towne portrays the fearless girl reporter as she goes underground to get the scoop on jewel smugglers.

Jane Arden was probably the first girl reporter comic strip when it debuted in 1928. In various forms, it ran until 1968, and foreshadowed such characters as Lois Lane and Brenda Starr. Ruth Yorke appeared as Jane in a radio series in 1938 and 1939, and that's probably where Warner Brothers got the idea to make this movie. It's clearly a B movie, with direction by Terry Morse, but the large cast, typically for Warner Brothers, has such performers as William Gargan, Benny Rubin, and Hobart Cavanaugh. The result is a watchable hour of story.

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.