The Finger Points

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.

Socially-conscious Warners/First National delivered a corker of a newspaper melodrama in 1931, but this wasn't it: It was "Five Star Final." This fast-moving but muddled early talkie shares the crowded city desk with editors yelling "stop the presses!" and a cursory examination of the process of putting out a news daily. But here, the paper is genuinely excellent and socially responsible, not a muckraking tabloid. And the idealistic cub reporter (Barthelmess, who looks far too old to be a cub reporter) turns rotten awfully quickly, becoming a yes-man to a mobster (Gable in a typical early role, and effortlessly natural and likeable). It drains audience sympathy for our hero, and we don't see why his journalistically wise, sob-sister colleague (Wray, who looks too young to have Seen It All) would stick around with him, or take him back without his having really reformed. The motivations are confused throughout, and when our hero meets an unhappy fate, the movie seems to mourn him, but we don't. It's like a morality tale without a clear moral. Warners got better at its social realism quickly, and Barthelmess went from this comparative potboiler to the far more interesting "Cabin in the Cotton" -- again playing an idealistic sap, albeit one with more consistency.

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.

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.

After talkies came in, Warner Brothers didn't really seem to know what to do with Richard Barthelmess, but he hung around in starring roles quite a bit longer than most of his silent counterparts - from 1929 to 1934.

Normally Barthelmess played thoughtful guys put into tight circumstances, and this was probably supposed to be one of those roles, but it doesn't' quite come across right. Breckenridge Lee (Richard Barthelmess) starts out as a totally green and conscientious reporter up from a Savannah paper into a press room of the big city. When the editor announces a campaign against the mob, Lee is the only reporter that takes his assignment seriously. He even walks right up to a speakeasy and asks probing questions to the mobster in charge. Unable to be bribed he writes an expose on the place and it is thus raided by the police. The mob then beats him up one night in retaliation, badly enough that he needs hospitalization and his medical bills pile up. He is surprised when the city editor balks at helping him financially, as he denies that Lee's beating had anything to do with the paper at all and hints that Lee's injuries probably had something to do with him drinking and hanging around unsavory people after work.

Now this is where things get a bit unrealistic. Lee instantly turns from green honest reporter to money hungry and corrupt. He figures if you can't beat them, join them. He takes money from the mob and in return agrees to keep the paper and thus the cops off of their backs. He justifies this by saying that the only way that the mob will ever pay is with money to him - but he's not exactly giving the loot away to charity.

Fay Wray plays Lee's love interest as fellow reporter Marcia who at first suspects then knows the truth and loves him just the same. Regis Toomey plays a supporting role as someone who would like to win Marcia's heart but knows when he's beat. Robert Elliot is the gruff tough city editor who often played a cop in the early talkies. Of course, most notable here is Clark Gable, sitting in the palm of Jack Warner's hand, and not being recognized by him as a star in the making. Gable is impressive here as a spats-wearing charming sinner, the gangster who sees Lee as a useful idiot - for awhile anyways.