Vendido

I looked at this movie mainly because of the leading man. I never saw him in a talkie before. He was no worse then most silent actors who came into talkies. He plays a new reporter from the south working at a big city paper.

I must tell you I was not prepared for what was to come. And I am not going to spoil it. But he was such a fresh nice face that I actually thought in the end we would find out he was working undercover for the cops. But no he is mad because the newspaper would not give him a raise or advance his salary because he had gotten shot doing a story for them and he feels they should help with the Medical bills. So he becomes a reporter for the syndicate. He gets paid well for not writing stories. The problem is that his girlfriend, who also is working at the paper as a Ann Landers type columnist wants nothing to do with what he has become. I am not going to tell the ending. But I was surprised.

Afterwards I found out this was based on a true story. The supporting cast was very good. I never realized how pretty Fay Wray was. She is striking. She always had a pretty face to me, but she is gorgeous. She is the girlfriend. She has a nice role. You can tell this was pre code because she had a good job and she was fairly aggressive about her feelings toward him.

Regis Toomey was very good as a fellow reporter and best friend who also likes the Fay Wray character. But he a very nice guy and we do not get the usual rivalry that turns nasty. Which is good.

Clark Gable was at the point of of his career when he played bad guys. Like in Night Nurse where he was smacking around old ladies and his girlfriend and trying to poison her children. He is not any nicer here. I actually like Gable in these roles. I would recommend this movies because it goes in a different direction that I thought and it was very nice seeing actors in the crossroads of their careers.

Most of the lines delivered in this film convey no emotional content. As a result, the entire film has little impact.

The story is not believable, mostly due to the performance of Richard Barthlemess, who plays the main character, Breckinridge Lee. Lee is a small-town reporter who moves to the big city and becomes a crime reporter. The love interest is played by Fay Wray, who has her moments. But only Clark Gable really shines through the dullness of this production.

It's a shame, really, because the storyline has real potential. If only it had been fleshed out and given to an actor who could portray the important emotions: the uncertainty of the fish-out-of-water, the man in love with the woman, the fear of the reporter involved in something dangerous, the distress of a man torn between love and shame.

Finger Points, The (1931)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Static but entertaining gangster picture has a wet-nosed reporter (Richard Barthelmess) from the South going to the big city to become a star but he soon learns that nothing is easy. After busting a gambling operation and getting nothing out of it, the reporter decides to partner up with a racketeer (Clark Gable) but soon the reporter gets too big for his current situation. This film is based on the life of Chicago Tribute reporter Jake Lingle who got involved with Al Capone and the rest is history. This film version is pretty good, although it's a bit slugish at time but this is due mostly to just how movies were during this early sound era. Barthelmess is hit and miss in his role. He's somewhat shaky during the nervous reporter segments but he settles down once he starts to enter the big shot period. Gable steals the show with his supporting performance and Fay Wray plays the love interest.

This is typical of the social dramas, or hollywood gangster films of the thirties, except its protagonist is a newsman, who gets no thanks for being a good reporter, (he gets beat up, and his bosses refuse to foot the hospital bills) and thus decides to be a finger pointer for the mob, while being fed stories by one mob to knock off the operations of its rival mobs. Certain scenes are overplayed and dreary while others are quiet with a lot of pathos to it. The once great star of silent cinema, Richard Barthelmess, was not great at delivering dialogue and is much the same here. But you've got Gable playing a gangster and a last fifteen minutes where given no dialogue, Bartelmess gets to shine and show us the actor he was. Overall, a good gangster flick dealing with the stories of the time that the press had been infiltrated by the mob to withhold harmful stories against them. It also was a hit, if that's a plus.

Being based loosely on a true story adds the dimension of reality to this depiction of how easy it can be to be lured to the dark side. It's reasonably entertaining but nothing like as good as the classic gangster films of the era.

The positives first: the camerawork is especially impressive: it's fluid, dynamic and visually very interesting. That positive however highlights the negative. Ernest Haller's cinematography looks anachronistic by which I mean it's what you'd expect from a classy picture from the 1930s yet weirdly looks out of place in a picture which feels more like something from the late 1920s. The acting style and dictation is what you find in those early talkies. Compared with other pictures from 1931, say PUBLIC ENEMY or APPLAUSE, the narrative is painfully slow and the characters are as believable as Mickey Mouse. (Except for Gable of course.)

Richard Barthelmess' sensitive and thoughtful personality is occasionally perfect for a handful of roles but definitely not in this. That he could morph into a tough crime-busting reporter is utterly unconvincing. When tempted by the lure of mobster moolah, the struggle with his conscious lasts no more than about five seconds: Gable: You're a goody two shoes but would you like to join us and become filthy rich?

Barthelmess: No, I hate corruption.... but then again... oh ok then, where do I sign?

Terrible writing.

Also miscast is Regis Toomey. What film does he think he's in? He tries much too hard to offset Barthelmess' humourless cold persona by being, what passed for amusing in his own mind. And Fay Wray - as always she's that simpering cardboard cutout she always is. Why she was so popular is anyone's guess.

So despite three miscast leads, painfully slow and unemotional direction and an unrealistic script, the story and authentic feel of the age is just engrossing enough to hold your attention. If you want to bathe in the sumptuous atmosphere of 1930 and taste the grime of the era, you might just about be able to overlook this film's many shortcomings and enjoy it as a movie, not just as a museum curio.