The Finger Points

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.

Good story, but you can tell it was made in the early years of talkies - very slow, deliberate movements, and LOTS of dark eye makeup on everyone. The supporting cast is the strength of this movie - Fay Wray (2 years before King Kong) plays the love interest Marcia Collins. Clark Gable (eight years before Gone with the Wind) is the antagonist-designee Louis Blanco, who is helping to cover up the naughty things his boss is doing. Blanco is trying to convince reporter Breckenridge Lee, played by Richard Barthelmess to help them cover up the naughty things going on in this fair city. I love the line by Fay Wray that she can tell he's from the South from his accent, although the only accent I can hear is some dropped R's, (since he was raised in New York). Unfortunately, Barthelmess, who is very wooden and stiff, being used to working in the silent movies, is the main character and the weakest link here. Note in his list of films, he made about sixty silent films prior to 1930, but very few after that - probably his best known talkie would be "Only Angels have Wings" with Cary Grant.

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.

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.

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.