This offbeat drama from United Artists and director William K. Howard has elderly Vinnie McLeod (Grace George) running a struggling newspaper in a small town circa 1906. She has a soft spot for the vagrants who pass through, often feeding them and cleaning them up. Currently she's locked in journalistic battle with local big shot W. M. Dougherty (Edward McNamara), a crook with his fingerprints all over various town scandals. McLeod gains an unlikely ally when another passing bum, Tom Richards (James Cagney), turns out to be a talented reporter. She hires him onto the paper, and Tom sets out to bring down Dougherty once and for all. Also featuring Marjorie Main, Marjorie Lord, Hattie McDaniel, William Henry, Margaret Hamilton, Robert Barrat, George Cleveland, Lucien Littlefield, Clarence Muse, Joseph Crehan, and Arthur Hunnicutt.
This was the first film produced by Cagney and his brother William Cagney for their independent company. It's an unusual mix of nostalgic smalltown whimsy and hard-hitting corruption expose, with bursts of surprising violence. 64-year-old Grace George, who gets an extended "Introducing" credit at the film's start, was a major theater star who had actually appeared in a silent film decades earlier. This would prove to be her only other screen credit. I enjoyed Marjorie Main as the scandalous operator of the local gambling establishment (it's implied that it's a brothel, but this being the production code years...), and Arthur Hunnicutt in an early role as one of the passing hobos. The movie earned an Oscar nomination for Best Score (Leigh Harline).
