Night Alarm

Bruce Cabot is happy when Judith Allen comes in to complain about his gardening column. He resigns it in favor of her and goes chasing fires. He soon discovers that industrialist/political kingpin H.B. Warner -- whom no one realizes is Miss Allen's father -- is behind the rash of fires that have been devastating the city recently.

This was directed by Spencer Gordon Bennett. Bennet's directorial career stretched back into the silents, and this movie indicates he never got out of it. Only Warner consistently gives his line readings any weight. Cabot manages to do so about a third of the time, and everyone else speak as if they are reading them phonetically off cards -- except for Sam Hardy, who seems to alternate his words with opening his eyes wide, like a sleepy frog.

Visually this movie is all right (reviews of the movie on the IMDb indicate it is worth seeing for Miss Allen in a spangly nightgown), but the director's tin ear for dialogue are a clear reason he never got out of the lower ranks of B movies and serials in the sound era.

Sort of a mix between 'The Front Page' and 'Backdraft', 'Night Alarm' focuses on a reporter trying to break away from the gardening desk, to scoop a story about a series of Fires happening around the city. He blames it all on the big industrialist in the town who's got the mayor and the police captain in his back pocket. Things get even more interesting when the cute girl they've hired to replace him in the gardening beat is actually the industrialist's daughter. As the plot unravels, and more fires ensue, you can just imagine how the movie ends, with the industrialist's daughter being caught in a fire! Someone has to rescue her! And that's exactly how it ends! Bruce Cabot is alright here, as the curiously named lead character, Hal Ashby. I mean, how priceless is that? I'm not sure if Mr. Ashby was doing movies at the time, but that's quite funny. Worth seeing for that alone.

Little Majestic pictures, long deceased, must have broken the budget to do this one. It's about a reporter, Hal Ashby (Bruce Cabot), stuck on the "Garden Beautiful" column but who would rather chase down the cause of a series of fires in the city. He quits the column and goes out to track down the perpetrator. In the meantime, a woman who seems to know all about gardening has taken Ashby's place in the column.

Ashby said he always wanted to be a fireman but was afraid of heights so couldn't qualify, so instead he is compelled to follow fire companies to their fires. He settles on a theory that because all of the buildings that were burned down belonged to city king maker Henry Smith (H. B. Warner), that he is probably burning down these buildings for the insurance money. Ashby also begins to take a shine to the woman who took over his gardening column, and his feelings seem to be returned. Complications ensue. Character actor Sam Hardy plays the paper's editor and Ashby's boss.

This film has very good production values and keeps up a good pace. The fires and interiors of night clubs look authentic. Because some veteran actors are employed the performances also ring true, and the plot does have some good twists and turns.

It does have a few places where it falls down. There is a musical comedy nightclub act in the middle of the film that is not melodious and just not funny. Fuzzy Night was mainly known as a sidekick in B westerns. What he is doing here as a musician I have no idea. At any rate his act is as all wet as his piano when he accidentally pushes it into a pond in the center of the nightclub dance floor.

I'd recommend it as a worthwhile way to spend an hour.

H. B. Warner was a fine actor, although sound came too late for him to be a leading man. However, whatever part he is given -- here he is the ingenue's industrialist-financier father -- he is head and shoulders above all the other talent. Here his role is intended to be ambiguous, and he delivers -- because up until the very end, you could see him on either side of the law, he plays it that neatly. I cannot say enough about his skill, his charisma, and his command of any scene in which he appears.

Bruce Cabot is rather pleasing as a carefree reporter and Judith Allen is charming as his girl reporter love interest, but the best thing about this film, aside from H. B. Warner, is the tremendous amount of documentary footage involving early 1930s fire engines and burning buildings. The fires are real, from news footage, and are elegantly intercut with scenes on sets. But what really got me was watching the fire trucks running out, sirens blaring, as i tried to figure out in what part of Los Angeles this was filmed.

It was a warehouse district -- the plot called for that -- and we got lucky as we ran the film at half speed to look for business names (Maxwell House Coffee, Gilmore Gas and Oil, etc.) and saw a sign for Imperial Street. Google maps told us that Imperial Street no longer exists, because it has been made into warehouse parking lots now, but it is still on the maps, and right north of it is Los Angeles Fire Station #17 -- where the engine company was located!

Re-running the film, we could trace all the routes, down Santa Fe St., 11th street, by the old train yard -- it is all there. The film footage is not super high-quality, because much of it was shot at night (the title of the film is "Night Alarm," after all) but it is priceless because almost every building in this district, including the fire station, has been torn down and replaced with modern block-structures. Here it is captured, a snapshot in time.

The night club (called a "casino," although no gambling was shown) was not a set either. Where it was, i do not know, but as a location shot it was also a nice treat.

The plot is nifty, the ending is exciting and also satisfactory, so i rated this film as a 7 because of the documentary footage, with an extra point for H. B. Warner's fine performance, giving it an 8 overall.

Considering that it's produced by Majestic Pictures, I sure expected this to be an awful little B-movie. However, to my surprise, I thought, for a B, it was pretty watchable.

The film stars Bruce Cabot--a guy usually known as a supporting actor or a heavy. Here he plays a newspaper reporter who is sick of having to do a gardening column! He knows nothing about it and can't wait to start covering important stories--such as a recent spate of arsons. The plot is pretty cute at times and the finale involving the fire is amazing good owing to the fact that the usual budget for a Majestic film was $47! All in all, interesting and more than just a minor time-passer--much of this due to Cabot's excellent acting and presence. Worth seeing--particularly as it is downloadable for free from the IMDb link!