Torchy Blane.. Playing with Dynamite

The trouble with all those Torchy Blane movies were that they were all too similar in plot and style. In other words, if you've seen one, you've seen them all.

Once again, Torchy finds a way to nab a criminal for her policeman pal Steve McBride, with the roles now played by JANE WYMAN and ALLEN JENKINS. Needless to say, they're not a convincing match. Wyman does all of her cutesy tricks that she employed during her early days at Warner Bros., and Jenkins plays a dumb cop in his usual style, for laughs. TOM KENNEDY is still on hand as the bumbling helpmate of the two, this time involved in a wrestling match that spins the film toward its finale.

Fast moving entertainment, it's a B-film that played the second half of a double feature in 1939. Apparently, it didn't catch on as well as the series did with Glenda Farrell in the lead, so it became the last film of the Torchy Blane series.

I love Glenda Farrell. She is always fun, and she's fun in this series. But the plots are thrown rogether so quickly they frequently make no sense.

Lola Lane was a ghastly substitute in the Panama outing.

In this one, Jane Wyman and Alan Jenkins seem an unlikely couple, to say the very least. However, it has a linear plot that makes good sense and is both exciting and funny (when it wants to be.)

Jane Wyman: such a strange career. She is heartbreaking in "The Yearling" and deserves her Oscar for "Johnny Belinda." And she was a charming light comic before and even these two.

Then she got ultra-serious and made those schmaltzy women's pictures. Douglas Sirk? OK. Fine craftsman. But most of Wyman's output after the early 1950s is a disappointment, though it kept her in the public eye and surely made a good deal of money.

The ninth and final Torchy Blane movie. This one stars Jane Wyman and Allen Jenkins, replacing Glenda Farrell and Barton MacLane. Tom Kennedy stays on as Gahagan. The plot has Torchy going undercover to prison to get closer to a gangster's girlfriend. Wyman and Jenkins are fun but it's hard not to compare them to Farrell and MacLane, who perfected these roles and had much better chemistry. Ultimately, the individual pieces are greater than the whole here. I can't say I wasn't entertained. A good cast goes a long way. The highlights include Gahagan wrestling, Torchy stopping a prison fight, and characters with colorful names like Denver Eddie.

They gave Jane a new hairdo and camouflage her as beautiful. Not buying it. Glenda Farrell is one of the prettiest women in Hollywood at the time,wierd replacement. Allen Jenkins always great though. Just a super odd duo,movie isnt bad.

By the way Glendas first "real" Torchy outing was Mystery of the Wax Museum,Glenda at her spunkiest.

For the final entry of this series, Torchy Blane, girl reporter on a quaint metropolitan New York newspaper gets herself pinched speeding to file a story. Turns out to be a lucky break because she gets tossed into jail with Sheila Bromley, girlfriend of notorious bank robber Eddie Marr.

The original stars of the series, Glenda Farrell and Barton MacLane as NYPD Detective Steve McBride were replaced by Jane Wyman and Allen Jenkins. This may have been the only time in screen history that Allen Jenkins got the girl. They were fine in the parts, but the public didn't accept them and the series was discontinued.

Along though for the final ride was Tom Kennedy who was McBride's cop sidekick as he was for the rest of the series. Kennedy was a former boxer who was also a former wrestler. Familiarity with the squared circle plays an important part in what was a most interesting climax to the film.

Torchy Plays With Dynamite was something I'm sure entertained many people on the double bill who might have come to see one of Warner Brothers big budget attractions like Dodge City in 1939. It's fast paced and amusing and no one I'm sure walked out.