The Murder Man (1935)

You won't be disappointed!

Absolutely Fantastic

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

A man is deeply wronged by smart businessmen and acts upon it. He is morally in the right, since the culprit being acted upon would go on with his mayhem if he was not stopped and there was only this way to stop him.I cannot tell much more without Writing a spoiler but I wanted to Review this film because it tells about a moral code that seems lost today. Today everybody in America seems so committed to business that they would not react like the man above because I hear of no such stories although there must be a billion of them around and seemingly nobody is reacting on them.Maybe it will happen some time and then it will come like a big Avalanche and sweep most of it Clean - who knows? If it happens though, it will be the end of all business and the beginning of decency.

Newspaper stories like this one were popular beginning with "The Front Page" (1931) and including "Dance Fool Dance" (1931), "It Happened One Night" (1934), "Front Page Woman" (1935), "Love on the Run" (1936), and "Libeled Lady" (1936). My favorite newspaper stories include "Citizen Kane" (1941), "The Front Page" (1931),"All the President's Men" (1976), "Deadline USA" (1952) , "Sweet Smell of Success" (1957), and "Ace in the Hole" (1951), and "Meet John Doe" (1941).This film doesn't have the acting, direction, or location to match any of these films. It does have Spencer Tracey and a good supporting cast that includes Jimmy Stewart (his second film), Fuzzy Knight, Lionel Atwil, Robert Barrat, and Virginia Bruce. And it does have a twist that comes out of left field. But when you consider the quality of the films being produced in 1935 ("Mutiny on the Bounty", "The Informer", "Anna Karenina", "The 39 Steps", "The Bride of Frankenstein", "David Copperfield", "A Tale of Two Cities", "Les Miserables", "Top Hat", and "A Night at the Opera") the film has little merit.

Steve Grey (Spencer Tracy) is the best homicide newspaper journalist in the city: they call him "the Murder Man." If there's a murder, he'll get all the inside information, and he'll have it on the press first. That he always succeeds despite a debilitating weakness for alcohol is considered by colleagues simply a part of his genius. In the killing of investment broker (read: con artist) James Spencer Halford – snipered in a car from a streetside shooting gallery – Grey is once again on the frontline, with an uncanny knack for reporting murder details before even the police know them. Grey plays the story from both sides, as a pivotal witness in the murder case against Henry Mander, the victim's business associate, and as a reporter ostensibly reporting the unbiased facts (intriguingly, it's a two-way street, since Grey often twists the facts to his advantage). This MGM drama, which I had expected to be as grim as the similarly- themed 'Crime Without Passion' with Claude Rains, is surprisingly light- hearted in tone for the most part. Particular amusement is provided by the lanky young form of Jimmy Stewart, boasting a cheerful cockeyed grin in his feature debut. Jimmy's first ever words in a prolific movie career? "Hi, Joe!"

Spencer Tracy is the title character. He is a newspaper's ace crime reporter in this very good movie that could have been great.I've read quite a lot about Tracy's life. The character he plays seems to have many traits and behavioral patterns in common with the real Spencer Tracy, who was apparently a far darker person than many of the benevolent roles he played.This moves along at a good clip. At times it's upsetting, at others it's exciting.Virginia Bruce is the lonely-hearts columnist at the paper. She has crush on Tracy but he has secrets and a past that have kept him from allowing a relationship to develop. (A couple years earlier, before the Code, it well might have developed anyway.) Bruce was a beautiful woman, with a poignant, ethereal quality. Here, however, she is unflatteringly costumed, made-up, and/or lit. She comes across more as a mannish, dowdy old maid schoolteacher than the romantic leading lady she was."Fury" is not a sunny movie, to say the least. This is another movie that shows a different Tracy we know from his two 1930s Oscar-winning roles, the collaborations with Katharine Hepburn, and "Father of the Bride" and its sequel.The very darkest of all his movies, however, is "The People Against O'Hara." I consider that one a classic. This is not quite a classic but it's unique and gripping.