Here Comes Carter

This was the fifth Warner Brothers short that William Clemens directed; he also directed the Philo Vance, Nancy Drew, and the Falcon film series. We see right off the bat that lead Kent Carter (Ross Alexander - see his bio on IMDb for his tragic story) loves his secretary Linda, played by Anne Nagel, and she may or may not love him back. He gets tossed out of his job, threatened by thugs, and spends the rest of this short trying to get a job, keep a job, or stay alive. Glenda Farrell (from Little Caesar & Gold Diggers) is his assistant Verna Kennedy. The dashing Craig Reynolds (died at 40 in a motorcycle accident) is his nemesis Rex Marchbanks. We get to hear Nagel sing a couple songs, while Carter keeps outsmarting the bad guys. and all neatly wrapped up in 58 minutes. fun, simple caper.

This is one of the few films that the very tragic Ross Alexander made before he ultimately killed himself at age 29! He only made 17 films and this is his next to last feature. As another reviewer recommended, read his IMDb biography for more on Alexander.

Kent Carter (Alexander) is out of work and eventually finds a job writing for a radio star. However, one day this star is too drunk to go on the air and with no other choice, they let Carter go on instead. Carter's on the air style is much like Walter Winchell...but even more scandalous and muckraking! Naturally, he irritates a lot of people and soon folks start threatening to sue...but his information is the truth AND the folks at home love him. Soon he's a big star and along with this his ego grows tremendously. Eventually, his ticks off not just movie folks but the mob...as well as his girl who is ashamed of him. At one point, Linda tells him she'd rather 'see him cleaning sewers' instead of doing a radio show like he's been doing! What's going to become of all this?

If a movie could make the star in it bigger, this probably wasn't the one for Alexander. His character is too brash, self-absorbed and unlikable--much like the sorts of guys Lee Tracy excelled at portraying--a guy who actually created a niche for himself playing these sorts of jerks. I am sure this film had little to do with his suicide but it certainly didn't help Alexander in his career. The film is enjoyable but a slight and easy to skip time-passer from Warner Brothers.

By the way, early in the film you'll see Wayne Morris as a fry cook...before he became a star with the studio.

Except for early glimpses of up-and-coming stars like WAYNE MORRIS (as a fast food counter man) and JANE WYMAN (barely visible), HERE COMES CARTER is strictly routine stuff with ROSS Alexander cast as a brash and very smug newsman, a central character you can't help dislike.

GLENDA FARRELL trades barbs with him as a tough talking secretary in her usual brisk manner. The foolish plot is something about a man who loses his job because of an indiscreet column blasting a colleague, handsome CRAIG REYNOLDS. He then has to spend the rest of the story planning his comeback.

Alexander gives a one-note performance, full of brash mannerisms and nothing else. ANNE NAGEL, who became his future wife in real life, plays his secretary with a lovely singing voice with aspirations of her own. Neither one went on to establish themselves in films, Alexander taking his own life shortly after marrying her and Nagle's career stifled by B-films and serials for the duration of her career.

With roles like this, it's no wonder Alexander was highly dissatisfied with the turn his career was taking.

"Here Comes Carter" is one of those cinematic throwaways that Warner Bros. (and the other major studios) ground out back in the pre-television days. It stars Ross Alexander, a likable young performer and closeted homosexual who killed himself at the age of 29, Glenda Farrell back when she was still a knockout and Anne Nagel who was a better actress than most of the glamour girls on the Warner Bros. lot. The plot doesn't make a whole lotta' sense. One minute, Carter is a movie studio publicist, the next he's an imitation Winchell, broadcasting Hollywood gossip. There's a subplot about a gangster's plan to bump off Carter but that gets lost in the shuffle. One suspects that the screenwriters were making this thing up just in time to send pages of script to the sound stage where the movie was already filming. Yet, in its own hackneyed way, "Here Comes Carter" is fun.

This amusing but overly frantic second feature comedy stars Ross Alexander as a Hollywood press agent who is fired from his job flacking at a movie studio and becomes a radio reporter on Tinseltown, dishing the dirt. Alexander co-stars with future wife Anne Nagel, but the show is stolen by Charley Foy and by Glenda Farrel as a hard-boiled secretary at the radio station.

Ross Alexander is an interesting performer, but his manner in this role is a little too loud when he opens his mouth, half Walter Winchell and half Ted Lewis, although when he lies back on his heels for a reaction shot, he seems made for the movies. Alexander was being cast in Dick Powell's cast-offs at this point and his director here, Clemens, doesn't add much to this one-hour featurette.