Big News

An early talkie, and boy, does it show, with the static camerawork and uncertain sound recording. But it's a lively newspaper comedy-drama, energetically directed by Gregory La Cava and conveying lots of big--city-news atmosphere. Robert Armstrong, not the suavest or handsomest leading man, is a "Front Page"-style newspaperman pursuing an opioid story and squabbling with not just his editors but his wife, Carol (not yet Carole) Lombard, who's only 20 or 21 here and not the incandescent presence she later became. Sam Hardy's a menacing thug, Gabby Hayes another newsman, and, most intriguingly, Cupid Ainsworth is the jacket-and-tie-wearing lady who dispenses advice to the lovelorn, along with wisecracks. There's much drunken behavior, of the type once considered hilarious, and it's fast-paced and lively. I kept wanting Armstrong to turn into Lee Tracy, and I wish it were more audible, but at 65 minutes, it doesn't wear out its welcome.

Steve Banks is a hard-drinking newspaper reporter.

His wife Margaret, a reporter for a rival paper, threatens to divorce him if he doesn't quit the drinking that is compromising his career.

Steve pursues a story about drug dealers even when his editor fires him.

When the editor is murdered, Steve is accused of the killing.

But Steve has an ace up his sleeve that may save him from the electric chair.

Does this sound like a comedy? That's where IMDb puts it. It's a weird and dumb movie.

A semi-alcoholic news reporter finds himself suspected of the murder of his editor. Lively but slight tale that might have benefited from a stronger leading man than Robert Armstrong. Doubtful that his sloppy suit-and-tie-wearing female colleague would have made it into the picture post '34.

Big News casts Robert Armstrong and Carole Lombard as a pair of reporters married to each other but working for rival papers. If you expect to see the gifted comic Lombard from such future classics as My Man Godfrey and Twentieth Century Big News will disappoint you greatly. This one is strictly the show for Armstrong.

Armstrong drives his editor Charles Sellon to distraction with his drinking and carousing and it certainly is wearing on his marriage to Lombard. But as he says speakeasies are great place to pick up stories and Armstrong has been successful.

A particular speakeasy owner Sam Hardy is the leader of a narcotics ring in their town and Armstrong has the goods on him. Hardy tries something stupid, he goes to the newspaper office and murders the editor and frames Armstrong for the crime. But naturally our intrepid reporter is too smart for Hardy.

Big News is little more than a photographed stage play and the original play was no world beater either. It never holds your interest in the way such other films like Detective Story, Dead End, Rope, or Rear Window do that are all almost exclusively on one set.

Big News is directed by Greogry LaCava who also did My Man Godfrey. Whatever he brought out in Lombard for that film stayed buried here. In fairness to Carole, she was not given much to work with.

Still it's 1929 and movies were learning to talk. Films like Big News show how much was left to learn.

Robert Armstrong ("Steve") is a reporter at a busy newspaper where he spends much of his time drinking or nursing an hangover. His behaviour is testing the patience not just of his bosses, but of his wife Margaret (a feisty Carole Lombard) who works for another newspaper and for some reason is still keen on him. When he finds himself on the wrong end of a murder investigation, she must help him track down the true culprit. The thing about this film is the dialogue - it is relentless and after a while becomes quite irritating and largely humourless. Sure, it deals with alcoholism (and it's side effects) in a way that the code would soon discourage, but as he comes across as somewhat odious and the whole pace, though frenetic as you might expect in a 1920s newspaper office, goes nowhere fast for the vast majority of the film. Even the last fifteen minutes - in which everything of note occurs - doesn't really lift it. I just found myself a bit bored by it all and it seemed longer than it's 75 minutes.