The Power of the Press

Director Frank Capra, signing with Columbia Pictures in 1927 after severing ties with comedian Harry Langdon, said he "wasn't at home in silent films." But his body of nine movies without sound was a learning visual tool for the young director. It helped that Columbia, headed by brothers Jack and Harry Cohn, was a recent start-up studio producing mainly shorts and two-reel comedies as fillers to play between the bigger studios' main feature films. When the ambitious Capra was hired, he at first had to prove himself as a talented filmmaker whose resume, besides directing a scant few of Langdon films, was thin. Judging from his first couple of years's output at his new studio, he definitely proved his worth.

In the first year with Columbia, Capra directed seven 1928 feature-length films. His final movie that year was October 1928's "The Power of the Press," about a cub reporter (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) who gets the assignment to cover the murder of the city's attorney general. The young newspaper man stumbles upon a web of organized crime and corrupt local politics. The fourth estate factors in a number of future Capra films. "The Power of the Press" also begins a common theme of the director's by focusing on dishonest politicians.

The magic of "The Power of the Press" is seen in Capra's quick pacing when the action unfolds. He absorbed the Soviet filmmakers's philosophy that an inch of static footage is wasted space. The "fat" has to be excised when the activity on the screen quickens. Capra also had the gift of interjecting humor into certain scenes his audience least expects. "The Power of the Press" follows a familiar pattern of Capra's showing a sincere but inexperienced protagonist getting duped by corrupt people surrounding him, but emerges much the wiser by triumphing over such dishonesty.

The lead in "The Power of the Press" was 19-year-old Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. (son of the famous actor), whose presence in the tail-end of 1925's "Stella Dallas" increased his visibility, securing him larger roles. He's exuberant as the rookie reporter Clem Rogers, who's given the large murder story when the paper's editor finds no other reporter in the newsroom so late at night. Clem discovers Jane Atwill (Jobyna Ralston), daughter of the opposition candidate running against the city mayor, hightailing out of a window of the murdered city attorney's house. It's a set-up by the current mayor, knowing if she's a prime suspect, he's golden for a no-opposition election. But Clem digs deeper to discover the corruption inside city hall.

Jobyna Ralston, comedian Harold Lloyd former lead actress for a number of his films, was enjoying success in her free-lancing days She appeared in eleven movies after her final picture with Lloyd, 1927's "Kid Brother," before she received her big role in "The Power of the Press." Another actress in the film was the former Mrs. Chaplin, Mildred Harris, who continued her busy stagecraft playing Marie Weston.

Frank Capra follows up a well-made but misguided naval thriller with another thriller, this one centered around a young reporter trying to uncover some corruption and crime at the highest levels of his unnamed city, and its right back to feeling like a Capra film. It doesn't have the same warmth as some of his better-known films, but it's got that little guy standing up alone against the big guy dynamic, all while Capra shows surprising affinity with thriller mechanics. It's a surprisingly effective little film.

Clem (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) is the newest man at the newspaper, given the task of writing weather reports while his editor (Robert Edeson) cuts out all of the florid language he adds in while he dreams of breaking the big story that will make his career, much to the derision of Johnson (Dell Henderson), a senior reporter who laughs at his dreams. Luck comes when Clem is the only one around as the editor receives news that the district attorney has been murdered, sending Clem to the scene to pick up what news he has. He stumbles across a young woman, Jane Atwill (Jobyna Ralston) fleeing the scene, given the scoop by the nearby Van (Wheeler Oakman) that she had something to do with the murder. Clem has made his mark, his editor accepting the story and putting it on the front page in a huge headline.

Now, there's a small thing that films occasionally do, that I find to be more prominent in silent films than sound ones, where we get montages of "how things work", and Capra offers us a quick montage of how the newspaper press works mechanically. We watch Clem write the article, the papers go to the layout men, the layout men hammering the new plates into place, the new mold getting made, and the new printing plate getting put on the roller. It's quickly paced, doesn't get bogged down in the details, has no intertitle to explain what's going on, and it's informative while being germane to the plot, if not entirely necessary. It's a good little interlude that's well handled in its place.

The plot ends up turning when Jane shows up, demanding that Clem retract the story because it's not true, she's the daughter of the leading candidate for mayor, and the story is tanking his chances of winning. Clem goes to his editor demanding it to be retracted, a demand that leads to him being fired. Clem and Jane end up following the trail they pick up that takes them into the corruption of the other candidate, Robert Blake (Philo McCullough), and his band of crooks defending his secret past that involves the hidden dame Marie (Mildred Harris). The specifics of the actual history aren't that detailed (it's a MacGuffin, in the style of Hitchcock, so fine), but the trail of getting to that secret is detailed (a bit silly in a couple of respects, to be honest) and straightforward, making Clem into a real reporter who wears out his leather soles to get the story.

There's fun to be had in this film, and part of it is the winning performance from Fairbanks Jr., having adopted some of his father's charm and applying it as liberally as he could to this brash, young reporter. He's not swashbuckling, but he's adventuring anyway. It's a very plot heavy film, not allowing much in the way for character exploration, so charming is the right way to go for a lead. His supporting cast is the result of strong typecasting, especially with Oakman as the violent gangster who pops in and out of the story.

In a curious note, the print I saw seemed to be missing a brief section of the exciting climax where Clem gets a gun away from Van, the sort of plot mechanics that matter in some small manner, the movement of people from one place to the next is important to make sense, but ultimately don't matter that much for meaning and intention of the overall piece. I only bring it up because it was jarring but didn't affect my appreciation for the film. It's not like Capra left it out on purpose, it was just lost to some projectionist or other over the course of the previous 95 years.

Anyway, The Power of the Press is a demonstration of Capra's ability to move in and out of genre like any good studio director of the era. He was making films his own within them, the little guy who gets fired from the newspaper being the only one to continue the fight against the corruption of city hall (well, sort of, just a guy who wants the position) is purely the sort of thing that Capra would get known for, in particular films like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. His storytelling is rougher, but his technical skills are surprisingly adept (there are some tracking shots in here that are really quite fun). It's him in proto-form, and it's nice to see him continue to change and grow as an artist.

In the Citadel Film series book on the Films Of Frank Capra, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. wrote a letter to the editor saying that while he has enjoyed the great body of Capra work this film The Power Of The Press was not one that rated high in his or Capra's career. I'd tend to agree with that assessment.

Nevertheless The Power Of The Press has a certain charm to it and certainly was worth preserving. Fairbanks really carries this film as a charming if bumptious and slightly obnoxious cub reporter looking for a big scoop. He was all of 19 years old when he did this film.

Fairbanks is hanging around the city room hoping to get a big assignment and make his mark when word comes across that the District Attorney was murdered in his apartment. No one else is around so editor Robert Edeson sends Fairbanks who does get a big scoop when he finds the daughter of the opposition candidate Jobyna Ralston fleeing the scene. It is a big scoop, but it was carefully contrived to shield the real murderer and ruin Jobyna's father at the same time.

The key to all of this is Mildred Harris best known for being one of Charlie Chaplin's wives. Watching Mildred portray your typical 20s flapper make me realize why she got Charlie's mojo going. She really does steal the film whenever she's on screen.

The Power Of The Press is minor league Frank Capra, but still holds up well as entertainment.

This is a Capra film that I have always wanted to see and finally had the opportunity when it was released by Grapevine Video (www.grapevinevideo.com) in 2010. This was Frank Capra's final silent film. Hereafter they would at least be "Part-Talking". Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. proves to be a chip off the old block. He has the same kind of charm that made his father world famous and is even more striking in the looks department. It's also a pleasure to see Jobyna Ralston, the girl who was so wonderful in six of Harold Lloyd's very best features (including The Freshman, Girl Shy, Why Worry? and The Kid Brother) in a drama. She is also excellent in the 1927 Best Picture winner "Wings". As has been noted it is Charlie Chaplin's ex-wife Mildred Harris who is the BIG surprise. She turns in a very nice performance. THE POWER OF THE PRESS does a credible job of capturing the feel of the newspaper world. One of my favorite parts is the documentary-like scene of showing the procedure that takes place to get a story from notes to the printed page. Setting up the type and the running of the large presses is well captured. Worth taking a look at if your are a Frank Capra fan.

Cub reporter Clem Rogers (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) is stuck writing the weather report and death notices. The editor dismisses him when he asks for something meatier. And then one night the district attorney is murdered in his home and all of the other reporters have gone home for the evening. The city desk editor has no choice but to send Clem out to report on the killing.

Clem loses his press pass, so the police won't let him go inside the DA's home. Thus he's forced to just rummage around outside. While doing so, he sees a girl run past him from the house. She was there when the DA was shot and has since been hiding in a closet. A man sitting in a car nearby ID's her as Jane Atwill (Jobyna Rolston), the daughter of the reform candidate for mayor. Clem turns in his story and it is front page news, sure to kill Atwill's chance for election. Jane is cleared of any involvement in the killing, but still the publicity has done its damage. When she comes to Clem and turns on the water works he agrees to help her find who actually killed the district attorney and thus clear her name and reinvigorate her dad's campaign. Complications ensue.

Fairbanks Jr. Is all of 18 so there is an unexpected bonus of watching the kid take a star turn. There are lots of directorial flourishes from young Capra but the story is just minor league material. The charm is in its performances. It's nice to See Harold Lloyd's former leading lady, Jobyna Ralston, in one of her last films, while Chaplin's ex, Mildred Harris, plays a floozy whose insider knowledge of the gang running the city is key to blowing the DA's murder wide open. Mildred Harris is actually two years younger than Ralston but comes off convincingly as the cynical brassy party girl compared to Ralston's young innocent character.

In the middle of the film there is a montage showing the process of printing a newspaper. I don't know how many times that process has been captured on film, but it is historically important to see how a story made its way from the manual typewriter on the reporter's desk all the way to the newspaper boys hawking the headline on the streets. I thought that sequence was fascinating and very well done.

My title about Wheeler Oakman and Boris Karloff comes from this film being made just three years later as "Graft" with Regis Toomey as the cub reporter. In it, Karloff plays the same part of mob muscle that Oakman plays here. He often played gangster roles before Frankenstein. Also, the sound remake has Toomey playing the cub reporter role as slow-witted instead of just being overlooked as Fairbanks is here.