En liberté provisoire

Ace reporter 'Timmy' Blake (Joan Blondell) uses her feminine wiles and any bold-faced lie to get the story before rivals like Snoopy Davis. She is set to marry her editor Bill Morgan (Pat O'Brien) despite having constant arguments with him. Her next assignment is reporting on the death of the rich motor baron Spencer Wade. She comes into town declaring that he was poisoned. Eugene Forde was his doctor. Timmy's reporting starts laying suspicions upon the widow Arline Wade.

I'm not sure that they actually love each other. Do they even like each other? There is a difference between angry banter and loving banter. Pat O'Brien is not doing loving and Joan oscillates. The movie does these big broad screwball comedy bits and some don't come off right. The shattered glass doors always come after their fights and that accentuates something that needs less accents. I don't like this pairing but I do like Timmy being a scheming reporter. Joan Blondell could pull off sassy and scheming with enough appeal. Her oscillations help her in this case. This movie would work much better if only she isn't in a relationship.

Although reporters are barred from the scene, a deadly train wreck doesn't stop enterprising Joan Blondell (as Timothea "Timmy" Blake) from covering the story. Pretending to be a doctor, Ms. Blondell gets the scoop. Her editor and love interest Pat O'Brien (as William "Bill" Morgan) gets an anonymous tip stating that an automobile manufacturer did not die of heart failure, but was poisoned. He assigns Blondell the story and she suspects beautiful widow Margaret Lindsay (as Arline Vivian). We wonder why Blondell is interested in Mr. O'Brien and, even more, why he seems so uninterested in Blondell. The plot unravels between two dubious letters. The main reason to watch is Blondell. She is strong and sexy in this film. And, although second-billed, Blondell is the star.

**** Back in Circulation (9/25/37) Ray Enright ~ Joan Blondell, Pat O'Brien, Margaret Lindsay, John Litel

This is in many ways typical of the comedy/drama/love story/mystery/social message low budget very entertaining movies that Warner Brothers so excelled at in the 1930's. Having been done before in some variation as The Front Page, Front Page Woman, and One Fatal Hour, 1937's Back In Circulation is equally entertaining. Most notably due to the delightful Joan Blondell, a very engaging and effective actor. Her wonderful performance in Back in Circulation makes this one of my favorite movies from this era.

Like all of the other incarnations of this basic premise, this screenplay has its own unique set of characters and circumstances. Joan Blondell plays "Timmy" Blake, the star reporter for The Morning Express, who is possessed of an utterly inexplicable crush on her boss, Bill Morgan (Pat O'Brien), your basic jerk, and we are told that she has in the past gone to great lengths to get the scoop, including stealing evidence and committing perjury. During the course of our story, however, her conscience begins to catch up to her when she finds herself convinced of the innocence of wealthy Arline Wade (Margaret Lindsay), a woman accused of murder that is all but convicted in the pages of The Morning Express. Naturally it is Timmy's cleverness and resourcefulness that gets the story in the Express in the first place, and it is she who must solve the mystery in order to extricate Ms. Wade from a miscarriage of justice. This is all done with appropriately placed poignancy and lighthearted comedic overtones. Timmy belting a sleazebag gigolo unconscious with her perfect right hook ("Beg pardon?") and her screaming "fit" in the street during the scene that leads us into the movie's conclusion are particularly hysterical.

Yes, the story is full of laughably implausible peculiarities (it is obvious movie producers of that era did not consider their audiences as savvy as those of today). On what planet would a struggling reporter living in a two-room apartment be able to afford a closet full of designer gowns and a maid?! These were real reporters, mind you, not the pampered addle-brained news spokes-models of today. It is likewise ridiculous to imagine that a reporter armed with nothing more than an anonymous note (another plot hole, we never are told where this note originated) could walk into a coroner's office and have a burial stopped and demand an autopsy be performed. It's a testament to how entertaining this film is that you don't really notice this sort of thing until after the movie is over and you've had time to think about it.

I am unsure how Pat O'Brien scored top billing in this vehicle, as it would be lost without brilliant and beautiful Joan Blondell, who appears in nearly every scene and certainly outranks O'Brien in both screen time and importance to the plot. The cast is filled out quite nicely with familiar faces from Warner Brothers stable of commendable talent, including John Litel, Ben Welden, and Granville Bates as the coroner. Also keep your eyes on the uncredited generic reporters that make up the press pool in the Plattstown sequences, one of them is DeWolfe (later William) Hopper, who in twenty years time would become Paul Drake on the TV series "Perry Mason".

This film is packed full of unique characters, complex arch's, and is a treasure for anyone who likes 1930s comedies. Lead actress Joan Blondell displays a flair for comedic touch while also providing excellent dramatic expressions and reactions. Her character is tomboyish, yet, very attractive and feminine. One characteristic I thought made her most interesting is she didn't care about how her hair looked. At that time in history most female movie stars had their hair strictly cared for by a makeup department or they themselves would maintain it like most people do. This made every scene look unauthentic to real life. But I was surprised to see it wasn't perfectly in place all the the time, but often falling in her face in an unflattering way. Hard to tell if that was on purpose or due to quick shooting. Whatever the case, it is unique and memorable. The world that we see on screen seems to have enormous depth. I would recommend this film to anyone who enjoys a balance of comedy and drama, while also being open to "black and white". This movie single handedly turned me into a Joan Blondell fan.

Ace reporter Joan Blondell drives through the night and breaks some rules to get the story on the big train wreck. Back at the paper, she expects kudos--but boss Pat O'Brien does nothing but complain. Blondell is insulted, O'Brien insists that he appreciates her work, and they get all lovey-dovey for about two seconds...and then O'Brien tells her that she looks tired and she stomps out of his office, slamming the door and breaking the glass.

Both stars are energetic and talk fast but the characterizations are not subtle in this noisy newspaper drama. O'Brien is exceedingly bossy and unpleasant as the demanding editor; Blondell is just not believable as the hardboiled reporter who for some reason has a soft spot for her crabby boss.

The plot involves a murder investigation by Blondell and the paper. Having received an anonymous tip, Blondell stops a funeral and convinces the coroner to do an autopsy. Sure enough, the guy was poisoned. Could the murderer have been Margaret Lindsay, the beautiful widow? John Litel, the doctor who attributed the death to a heart attack? The paper pushes hard for Lindsay's indictment for the murder but just when it's almost too late, Blondell starts feeling guilty and wonders if Lindsay is innocent after all....

An interesting cast includes Regis Toomey, Eddie Acuff, and George E. Stone as various newspaper employees. Ben Welden plays a casino owner who, in one of the picture's many ridiculous sequences, visits O'Brien's office to help identify a suspect and then is held at gunpoint by O'Brien to prevent him leaving and talking to other papers' reporters.

A fast paced newspaper drama with these stars sounds like great fun. Unfortunately, the obnoxious characters and poor plot pretty much sink it.