Torchy Runs for Mayor

I watched TRFM on TCM this Saturday morning. It's the last Torchy film with Glenda Farrell and Barton McLane. Warner Brothers made one more, with Jane Wyman and Allen Jenkins in the leading roles.

TRFM has a pretty wild plot, with an unscrupulous criminal boss/medical doctor named Dolan suddenly taking over the city. He controls the mayor and other key city officials, including the police commissioner. Torchy wages a one woman war against him. She commits a few felonies to get the goods on him, including illegally bugging the mayor's office, breaking into Dolan's house, and stealing a red notebook with key evidence inside it. When the newspapers refuse to print her sensational stories, she quits her reporter job and tries to convince someone to run against the crooked mayor. Steve secretly submits her name as a candidate. So, as the title says, Torchy runs for mayor. Dolan has Torchy drugged and kidnapped. Steve gets frustrated and resigns from the police force so that he won't be constrained by any rules in his search for Torchy. Gahagan goes along with him. But can they find Torchy in time?

If you can get past the implausible plot situations, this is an enjoyable last offering for Glenda and Barton. It's fast paced, with good action. But Gahagan's character is really in the background and his comic relief lessened. The ending seems to indicate that the series is ending or that it's taking a new turn. But the final Torchy movie with Jane Wyman continues on the original storyline as though the ending in TRFM never happened. Only in Hollywood.

The eighth film in the Torchy Blane series and the final one starring Glenda Farrell and Barton MacLane. This time Torchy is trying to take down a corrupt politician. The title of the movie eventually does happen, although not until late into the picture. It's an exciting, fast-paced B movie. Arguably the best in the series. There's less comedy and more grit in this one. Stars Farrell and MacLane are both in fine form here, as is Tom Kennedy as the lovable Gahagan. Great support from John Miljan, Frank Shannon, Joe Downing, and Irving Bacon.

The first four Torchy Blane movies were fun little B's with a snappy pace and a nice balance of comedy and murder mystery. Then Farrell and MacLane sat out the fifth film. When they returned, things were a little different. The focus was less on Torchy or the Torchy/Steve relationship and more on the movie's villains and comic relief sidekick Gahagan. He's a fun character but I'm glad his part is scaled back in this one. It allows Farrell to shine in her final Torchy movie. The series would continue on with one more movie starring Jane Wyman.

In her last appearance as Torchy Blane, Glenda Farrell writes a series of stories about the corrupt mayor. When the reform candidate is murdered, she becomes a candidate for the office.

Miss Farrell largely disappears from the last third of the movie when she disappears, and Barton MacLane investigates what he thinks is her kidnapping. I suspect Miss Farrell's contract was ending, and so her role was reduced. Even so, there are plenty amusing bits to this movie, with the usual gang appearing.

This might've been pretty serviceable and even feminist for the time it came out, I'm not too familiar with the time, but that's the only way I can see how some of the positive reviews here make sense to me. But as much as it's great to know there was a female-led franchise back then, it is so confusing what they want to say through it. On one hand, our main lead is a journalist who'd go to any length for the right things, but even while doing the best she can, they make sure there's always a handicap because she's trying too much for a woman. Her love interest, the cop, is a despicable character who is still treated by the film as a good guy who is just trying to be sensible. There's so much that the woman accomplishes, but even after all that, at the end, it wants to establish that she's still a woman who would ultimately be just a homemaker. The problem with the film is that it doesn't really commit to one idea or the other; the actions that result in justice are all from the woman, but it still ends up saying that's not the right thing.

Reporter Torchy Blane denounces City Hall corruption in a series of scathing newspaper stories that are raising some serious hackles. Her fiancé, Lieutenant Steve McBride, even goes to her editor and begs him to have somebody else write the stories—he's worried about Torchy's safety.

And Steve doesn't even know about Torchy's eavesdropping operation in the City Hall basement, from which she listens in on the mayor's office, where local crime boss Dr. Dolan gives the puppet mayor his orders.

Glenda Farrell is back once again as the intrepid reporter who loves to investigate. Barton McLane as Steve is plenty solid this time around—he's still generally a step behind Torchy but isn't as much of a dunce as in a couple of earlier series entries. ("Listen, Steve," Torchy tells him at one point, "I know more about this case than you." "Well," he replies, unimpressed, "if you do I'll find it out.")

John Miljan is appropriately sinister as the wicked Dr. Dolan. In true Warner Brothers style, he talks so fast when he's excited that you can hardly understand him.

Tom Kennedy returns as Gahagan, the poetry-loving police chauffeur who loves to blow the police car siren. Even Gahagan is fairly serious and competent this time around, though he does offer a few choice bits of comic relief (like when he commends Torchy for having such "international fortitude").

An exciting climax helps distinguish this as one of the better Torchy Blane pictures. The plot is a little ridiculous (see the title) but that's kind of beside the point—it's witty, acted with enthusiasm, and moves at a terrific pace.