Five Star Final

The story holds true just as much today as it did when it was made. Powerful newspapers will stop at nothing, it seems, in the name of circulation. Scandal sells. The best scene in the whole movie is when Jenny confronts each of the three protagonists with the question, "Why did you kill my mother?". Randall, realizing what he has caused to happen, attempts to kill the story, then turns in his resignation. (Or maybe he realized just how much power he held in his hands and wanted no more of it.) This movie shows that the pen, indeed, is mightier than the sword.

Viewed this film years ago on a late late T.V. show and was able to tape it. The author of the original play, Louis Weitzenkorn, was once the managing editor of the New York Evening Graphic, a yellow journalism tabloid which gave him the idea for the main character of Hinchecliffe former publisher of the New York Mirror. The film was remade as Two Against the World in 1936. Bernard Hinchecliffe(Oscar Apfel) owner of the notorious scandal sheet, the GAZETTE and his managing editor, Joseph Randall(Edward G. Robinson), is ordered to boost the circulation by doing a story on the Vorhees case. Years ago, Nancy Vorhees(Francis Starr) murdered the man who betrayed her. Randall seeks the services of T. Vernon Isopod (Boris Karloff), an expelled divinity student. Isopod disguises himself as a clergyman and enters the Townsend home, gaining their confidence. Ona Munson, veteran film actress of the 1930's and 1940's along with Boris Karloff fullfil their newspaper duties perfectly. Five Star Final is a great film classic because of the great acting of Edward G. Robinson.

This Oscar-nominated film (Best Picture) shows the dark side of journalism as a paper delves into the past of a woman (Frances Starr) who was impregnated by her boss and acquitted of his murder.

Edward G. Robinson (Little Caesar) is a newspaper editor that is interested in boosting circulation and is not concerned with the lives he destroys in the process. He goes after Nancy Voorhees (Starr), who is now Nancy (Voorhees) Townsend and is not concerned that she has not told her daughter (the doll-faced Marian Marsh), who is now about to me married, about her past.

Robinson was absolutely brilliant in the role and ably assisted by Boris Karloff and Oscar-nominated actress (Dragon Seed) Aline MacMahon in her first film.

A classic showing the seedy side of journalism.

Five Star Final (1931)

There is one main reason to watch this—Edward G. Robinson. I almost didn't continue after the first fifteen minutes because this newspaper office drama was so filled with convenient stereotypes and one-liners it was drab.

Then came the obsessive-compulsive reporter played by Robinson, Mr. Randall. He's intense, and he's not in the movie nearly enough. There is a wonderful quirky part by Boris Karloff (a few months before doing Frankenstein's monster). And a slew of decent smaller parts keep it interesting like Aline MacMahon, playing a stenographer (and in her first film role) and Marian Marsh who plays the daughter with increasing intensity right up to the highly volatile last scene.

This is the heyday of the unsung Mervyn LeRoy, a director with at least two unsurpassed movies ("Three on a Match" and "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang"), not including his work on "Wizard of Oz." He has a dozen other really good films to his name, and this one survives despite some filler and a slightly functional approach to the acting and staging. This was the day when directors (and their crews) were pressed to shoot movies in a couple weeks or so, and it shows.

I only wish you could see the second half of this movie alone. It gets more dramatic, and more intense (and the one painfully wooden actress dies), and it really drives home the point against yellow, abusive journalism. The first half is stale enough to turn off a lot of viewers, I'm sure, and it brings down my overall impression of the totality. Luckily, if you make it to the end, you nearly forget the forgettable beginning and will leave with a good taste in your mouth.

And all the drinking in the movie? "God gives us heartache, and the devil gives us whiskey," Randall says as he downs a shot. He's seems to be standing at an ordinary bar, not an illegal speakeasy. But the year is 1931, just before the end of Prohibition. (The premiere was September 1931.) Drink is a frank and normal reality in much of the movie as people swig from bottles in their desk and meet at the bar after work, and it's an eye-opener to counteract the more extreme portrayals of alcohol in the movies. And of course, it's normal for the viewer in the theater at the time as well, part of the general feeling that the time had come to change the laws (which Roosevelt did in early 1933).

So, see this if you like pre-Code films, but stick it out through the more mundane parts. It's worth it.

Five Star Final according to Edward G. Robinson in his memoirs was a favorite role for him. He enjoyed having to go through a film without once taking up a weapon. But Robinson did have a weapon at his disposal here, one deadlier than the tommy gun. The power of yellow journalism to ruin and destroy lives for the sake of circulation.

Circulation is down at the New York Graphic, the sleazy tabloid where Robinson is the hardboiled editor. Publisher Oscar Apfel decides to rake over a 20 year old murder, one of those where are they now pieces. A woman killed a man who got her pregnant and refused to marry her and another man stepped up to the plate and raised her baby girl as his own. The couple, H.B. Warner and Frances Starr have lived quietly and anonymously on the west side of Manhattan the daughter, Marian Marsh is about to marry Anthony Bushell the son of a manufacturer.

The poking and prying of Robinson's reporters results in tragedy. It also gives Robinson a severe attack of conscience, encouraged by his girl Friday, Aline McMahon.

Stealing the film in the small part he's in is Boris Karloff as disgraced seminarian who affects the guise of clergyman to get the story he's after. It's one of Karloff's best non-horror film roles, he's positively creepy in the part.

The reason for Karloff's disgrace is sexual one and getting Karloff's mojo going as well is Ona Munson who also has a great part as the Nellie Bly of the tabloids. She tops Karloff in what she'll do for a story.

Five Star Final is a hard hitting well acted drama that does tend to go a bit overboard into melodrama, especially when H.B. Warner and Frances Stark are on screen. It was nominated for Best Picture of the year, but lost to the immortal classic Grand Hotel. It was later remade five years later as Two Against The World with Humphrey Bogart taking the Robinson part and the locale changed from a newspaper to a radio station.

I can easily see Five Star Final being remade for this century with the protagonist being the owner/operator of an internet website. The media may have changed, but sleaze is still sleaze.