Big News

Big News casts Robert Armstrong and Carole Lombard as a pair of reporters married to each other but working for rival papers. If you expect to see the gifted comic Lombard from such future classics as My Man Godfrey and Twentieth Century Big News will disappoint you greatly. This one is strictly the show for Armstrong.

Armstrong drives his editor Charles Sellon to distraction with his drinking and carousing and it certainly is wearing on his marriage to Lombard. But as he says speakeasies are great place to pick up stories and Armstrong has been successful.

A particular speakeasy owner Sam Hardy is the leader of a narcotics ring in their town and Armstrong has the goods on him. Hardy tries something stupid, he goes to the newspaper office and murders the editor and frames Armstrong for the crime. But naturally our intrepid reporter is too smart for Hardy.

Big News is little more than a photographed stage play and the original play was no world beater either. It never holds your interest in the way such other films like Detective Story, Dead End, Rope, or Rear Window do that are all almost exclusively on one set.

Big News is directed by Greogry LaCava who also did My Man Godfrey. Whatever he brought out in Lombard for that film stayed buried here. In fairness to Carole, she was not given much to work with.

Still it's 1929 and movies were learning to talk. Films like Big News show how much was left to learn.

An early talkie, and boy, does it show, with the static camerawork and uncertain sound recording. But it's a lively newspaper comedy-drama, energetically directed by Gregory La Cava and conveying lots of big--city-news atmosphere. Robert Armstrong, not the suavest or handsomest leading man, is a "Front Page"-style newspaperman pursuing an opioid story and squabbling with not just his editors but his wife, Carol (not yet Carole) Lombard, who's only 20 or 21 here and not the incandescent presence she later became. Sam Hardy's a menacing thug, Gabby Hayes another newsman, and, most intriguingly, Cupid Ainsworth is the jacket-and-tie-wearing lady who dispenses advice to the lovelorn, along with wisecracks. There's much drunken behavior, of the type once considered hilarious, and it's fast-paced and lively. I kept wanting Armstrong to turn into Lee Tracy, and I wish it were more audible, but at 65 minutes, it doesn't wear out its welcome.

A semi-alcoholic news reporter finds himself suspected of the murder of his editor. Lively but slight tale that might have benefited from a stronger leading man than Robert Armstrong. Doubtful that his sloppy suit-and-tie-wearing female colleague would have made it into the picture post '34.

I would say that 1931 was the year movies got remarkably better. By then the sound and picture quality was better and it seems the acting and the scripts made the leap forward too. 1929 was so early in the talkie stages that I don't think studios, directors, actors, or even writers were prepared for it. Because of that there were a lot of movies between 1929 and 1930 with bad plots and terrible acting.

Take "Big News" for instance. This movie was OK, but I think it would've been loads better if done a few years later.

The notable actors were Robert Armstrong and Carole Lombard. They played a married couple and both were reporters but at different newspapers. Robert Armstrong played Steve Banks, a reporter working at his sixteenth paper. He'd been fired from the other fifteen rags because of his drinking problem. When he was sober he was a decent newspaperman.

He was on the trail of a dope pusher named Joe Reno (Sam Hardy), except he couldn't stay sober long enough to gather anything on Reno. His only chance to 1.) save his marriage, 2.) break a big story, and 3.) save his job, was to sober up and do what he knew how to do.

As for a plot, "Big News" wasn't bad. The execution, however, left a lot to be desired, but I think that was the most that could be expected back then.

Free on Tubi.

The plot elements of this movie, in my mind, take second place to the repartee, or verbal fencing, that takes place among various characters. One character is always needling another; each tries to top the others in snarky insults. I suppose this is where the "comedy" label comes from.

For instance, there's the repartee among the various reporters on Robert Armstrong's newspaper. Cupid Ainsworth (a large fat woman) comes in, saying she's late because "I couldn't find a cab." Armstrong responds, "You mean you couldn't find one to fit you."

Ainsworth gives as good as she gets, however. When Armstrong comes back into the office after being bawled out by his wife, she says, "Well, well, well! Here comes the lion with the lamb's haircut!" (Ainsworth gives a very memorable performance in this movie, in my opinion.)

When Armstrong goes into the editor's office to get bawled out, Ainsworth cries, "Hold on boys, we're going around a curve!" (To me, that was better than Bette Davis' famous line, "Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night!")

Tom Kennedy is in the movie, playing a cop. (I always think of Kennedy as Gahagan, from the Torchy Blane movies.) Armstrong refers to Kennedy as "Flatfoot," and he growls, "Lay off the puppies!"

Armstrong and his even-more-drunken buddy get into a battle of wits in a speakeasy with members of a drug-dealing gang. Armstrong says, "I recently heard of two hop-slingers who were punished by being put in a barrel with a skunk. Fortunately, the skunk died." His buddy responds, "He was probably bored to death by their repartee."

I think this movie has a quite adult sensibility as regards inter-personal relationships and conversation. (Adult meaning "adult," not "dirty.") It's not a Pollyanna or Hollywood sensibility -- there's friction and oneupmanship among various characters. That makes a refreshing change. Kennedy's cop role is also more adult than his slapstick-ish Gahagan roles. I like the whole tone and atmosphere of this movie.

I always enjoy seeing Armstrong, who is perhaps best known as the impresario who brought King Kong back from his island. He was a quite prolific actor, and always interesting.

George ("Gabby") Hayes is also here briefly, and I'm always fascinated to see him in a movie, beardless and in an adult, not slapstick-ish role.

In the end, the murder is pinned on the actual perpetrator (yay!), and Armstrong and his wife are reconciled. I like a movie with a happy ending, and to see justice is done.

This movie, to me, is enjoyable, adult, and fun every time I see it.