A Suprema Cartada

This movie was a great reinactment of how newspapers changed their formats from pure journalism to sensationalism just after World War I. Edward G. Robinson, in one of his best unknown roles, starts his own N.Y. tabloid by becoming partners with a gangster who finances everything. The paper crusades against the underworld and soon enough the unholy partners are at conflict. A superp film that gives a better insight of the early newspaper business than "Citizen Kane"(Not saying its better than the Orsen Welles classic).Definatly a high recomendation; insight, drama, love, and guns.

I was interested in this film for two reasons - I like Edward G. Robinson very much, and just last year, I saw Marsha Hunt at Paramount's 100th anniversary party, 95 years old, with all her marbles, looking marvelous. It is wonderful to see her here, at the age of 23.

Unholy Partners takes place after World War I, when a newspaper man, Bruce Corey (Robinson) returns from the conflict - but not to his old reporting job. He wants to start a different kind of newspaper -- more of a tabloid, something people can fold over and read easily in the subway. But he doesn't have the money. He approaches a crooked gambler, Merritt Lambert (Edward Arnold) and wins the $250,000 from him that he needs, making them partners. Corey starts the paper along with his secretary (Laraine Day) and an assistant, Tommy (William T. Orr). Conflicts arise when Lambert objects to the investigation of certain stories that involve him.

This is a good film, somewhat melodramatic, with a pretty Hunt singing "After You've Gone" - she had a wonderful voice - as she plays Gail Fenton, who is dating Lambert, but has drawn the interest of Corey's assistant (Orr). If you baby boomers will think back, you may remember that at the end of every TV series produced by Warner Brothers there was the name Wm. T. Orr - Orr became a very successful executive producer. Robinson, Arnold, Day, and Orr are all very good.

This film came out around the same time as Citizen Kane so probably got lost in the shuffle, not that it's anywhere near as good. The interesting thing is they talk about the end of tabloid era. Little did they know that we're still in it, worse than ever.

The paper Corey starts, The New York Mercury, was based on the newspaper The New York Mirror. One of the reviews mentions reading the Sunday funnies. I did too. It was a fun paper.

Unholy Partners (1941)

*** (out of 4)

After WW1 newspaperman Bruce Corey (Edward G. Robinson) goes back to his job to try and pitch a job to his boss but he's not interested in the new ideas. In order to start his own paper, Corey starts a partnership with notorious gangster Merrill Lambert (Edward Arnold) and soon he lives to regret it. UNHOLY PARTNERS is a good little melodrama from MGM that manages to get two great actors in strong roles, although I will admit there are some pretty big flaws throughout the picture. The biggest flaw is the entire conflict of interest. I mean, Robinson's character should have known that he wouldn't be able to report certain illegal activities that Lambert is doing so when he starts doing so and the clash happens, the Robinson character seems shocked or pig-headed but what did he expect? Why the character never thought about this before making the deal is certainly a flaw in the writing but it's certainly not big enough to where it destroys the film. The best thing is without question the performances by the two leads. I'm sure reading the plot description that many would think Robinson would be playing the gangster but he was also great at playing the "good" guys just as much as the bad ones. He's quite believable in the part and I really liked the energy he brought the character. Arnold, often a good guy, really gets to shine here as the dangerous mobster and he's quite threatening. Laraine Day makes for a good love interest as does Gail Fenton. William T. Orr plays Robinson's "young" version and is good as well. The film contains a few good twists along the way, some good action, a couple nice laughs and best of all are the performances. UNHOLY PARTNERS isn't a lost classic but if you're a fan of the stars then it's worth watching.

This fleet and raffish newspaper melodrama was released the same year as Citizen Kane and in its far more modest way is almost as much fun. Like Kane (and dozens of ‘30s potboilers before it, most churned out by ink-stained wretches come west for a piece of the Hollywood action), it's a cautionary reminder of the roughhouse beginnings of the Fourth Estate.

Reporter Edward G. Robinson, overseas winning The Great War, started a peppy servicemen's paper The Doughboy. When he returns to New York, he wants to run the same sort of rag – a tabloid for the straphangers. `The war's done things to people,' he tells his old-school editor. `We've made life cheap. and that makes emotions cheap...There's no privacy left...Keyholes are to look through.'

But getting start-up money proves hard, and he ends up striking a bargain with big-time gangster Edward Arnold, who'll stay the silent partner. But when Robinson's let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may style threatens Arnold's interests, the partners become adversaries. `What people want to put in papers is advertising,' Robinson lectures Arnold. `What they want to keep out is news.' After Arnold tries to strong-arm his way into control of the paper, Robinson vows to put him out of business.

LeRoy was an old hand at filming quick-and-dirty dramas that rested, however lightly, on timely social issues. So he predictably does as well (if not a mite better) as he did a decade earlier with Robinson in Five Star Final. Other players include Laraine Day, Marsha Hunt and William T. Orr, but Robinson and Arnold dominate, as they should. The story takes a clumsy and fanciful turn or two near the end (with Robinson suddenly delivering a reverent paean to the press at odds with everything he stood for), though even these twists echo big stories of the roaring ‘20s. The closing sentiment of Unholy Partners, however, is a dubious one: That the `tabloid age is over.' A pass through the supermarket checkout aisle or a few clicks of the television remote show how laughable that prediction was.

This film is not perfect, but it is gritty enough to be real, in the style that is more in keeping with films of the later 40s. The two Edwards play well off each other, and it is a shame that they didn't make more films together. Although it was not a strong film for the female cast, it did give Laraine Day and Marsha Hunt some scope to show they were more than the dolly-birds that many directors took them to be. Call me superstitious, but three of the main cast were born in 1917 and all 3 lived to 2002, with the two lasses still going strong. Perhaps it is a sign that the director chose some strong actors to make this film hum along effectively. As to its portrayal of the paper business, it is highly contemporary in its grasp of how media men prefer to make the news than report it. The very fact that Miss Hunt and her husband, Robert Presnell were allegedly blacklisted for their communist (for this read, Liberal) sympathies in the 1950s is an ironical grasp of the power of the press over any idea of truth or talent over power and influence. Mervyn LeRoy remains an icon of morally strong, but unsentimental film-making in what is often a candy-coated world. 9 Stars.