Off the Record

Joan Blondell stars as Jane Morgan in this short, 62 minute Warner Brothers story of old time newspaper reporters. Mickey Fallon ( Bobby Jordan ) loses his parents and is now under the dubious care of his older brother Joe ( Alan Baxter ), who is in the rackets. Jane sees Mickey getting involved in this, and tries to convince "Breezy" ( Pat OBrien ) to let her write a story on it... Of course, no-one takes her seriously, so she mentions it in her column, and now everyone in town wants to get involved. Breezy and Jane must keep an eye on Mickey to keep him from getting back in the rackets. There isn't really time to develop any real, in-depth plot, so things move right along. Jordan was one of the original kids in the "Dead End" films. Blondell and OBrien had both been in Hollywood for ten years, so they were experienced actors by this time. (My favorite J Blondell film would have to be Desk Set... you gotta see it if you haven't already...) Directed by James Flood, who had spent his first ten years working on silent films. Good way to kill an hour, but don't expect a lot.

Pat O'Brien and Joan Blondell play a pair of reporters in Off The Record who take in young Bobby Jordan after his guardian and brother Alan Baxter is picked up o a gambling rap. In fact Baxter is taking a fall for an Arnold Rothstein type of character Morgan Conway. It leaves Jordan in a state orphan asylum for which he blames the reporters.

Eventually as they do in all these city tough kid films made back in the day Jordan does soften especially after they find something that interests him.

Some plot elements from Boystown are found here. Bobby Jordan who usually is in the pack in support of Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall in those East Side Kid/Bowery Boys films for maybe the only time in his career Jordan is the main protagonist in a movie. He does well, just like Mickey Rooney in Boys Town.

O'Brien and Blondell play their typical characters as well. Their fans should be pleased.

Pat O'Brien, as a New York City newspaperman who is cajoled into marriage (yet doesn't mind) and basically taken for a chump (but shrugs it off), is such a wonderful screen actor that even a simplistic scenario like this one slides right off his back. An exposé on gambling, written by fast-talking newspaper reporter Joan Blondell, sends a tough teenage punk to reform school; she feels guilty and asks a co-worker to marry her in order to adopt the kid and give him a second chance at life. Despite the large cast of screenwriters and story-originators who are credited with work on this project, it's a pleasant-enough picture, nimbly mixing hard-shelled sentiment with gangster prose within an amusingly dry newspaper milieu. O'Brien and Blondell are an easy match and, though the plot isn't convincing for a second, the picture succeeds as a friendly urban fairy tale. "Off the Record" isn't off-the-cuff, but it's definitely on-the-square. *** from ****

Director James Flood brings nothing to this Warner B. Although the two leads are, as you might expect, dynamite, the attempt to merge their fast-talking screwball relationship with one of Warner Brother's socially conscious dramas does not work. Perhaps a little more screen time might have resulted in a movie that lets both sides of the story work, but at sixty-two minutes, there's nothing for anyone to do but talk fast enough to get the story out; plus the triviality of the 'social evil' with the seriousness imputed to it is a serious misstep.

It is a pity because the cast, as usual with Warner's B production, is top notch. and the writing credits are nothing to be sneered at. A rare misfire.

Off the Record (1939)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

A reporter (Joan Blondell) does a story about mobsters hiring kids to guard various gambling rackets, which sets off a fire storm that gets one kid's (Bobby Jordan) brother thrown into jail. The kid, in return, gets sent to reform school, which causes the reporter to feel bad so she marries her editor (Pat O'Brien) so that they can adopt the kid. This Warner "B" film tries to mix various genres but as you can tell, it's basically THE FRONT PAGE meets any gangster period from that era mixed in with an East Side Kids type drama. Jordan, a veteran of the child group, does a pretty good job in his role, although his more emotional scenes don't come off too well. It's the cast that makes this thing worth viewing as Blondell and O'Brien offer up great performances and really deliver the goods. The two have great chemistry together as their comic timing is perfect. Both also share quite a few good scenes with the young Jordan. The movie runs a fast paced 71-minutes, which flows by for the first hour but then loses a bit of steam as we get a silly and predictable side plot dealing with the kid's brother wanting help to break out of prison. This all leads to a predictable conclusion but fans of the "B" genre will get a kick out of the film due to its cast. Fans of them will want to check this out but others can stay clear.