Star Reporter (1939)

Waste of time

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

STAR REPORTER is a typical low budget crime drama from Monogram. The film lacks the kind of spark that makes these films so watchable and as a result it feels rather tired and slight. The plot is fast paced and with plenty of incident, but when none of it is involving it becomes a bit of a problem as it tends to go by in a blur.The main character is the usual nice-but-dull protagonist seen in films such as this. He's gunning for a crime boss but through a plot contrivance doesn't realise the bad guy is his own father. It's a bit hard to swallow. A legal ally does know and tries to cover for the father for the son's sake, so the son takes out his wrath on the lawyer instead. It all comes clean in the end, but the journey is ordinary and devoid of depth so that you just won't care when it does.

The best thing about Star Reporter is its female lead, Marsha Hunt, here making her sixteenth film, would you believe? Although she was billed in second place to then-famous Walter C. Kelly in her very first film, The Virginia Judge (1935), movie photographers still didn't know how to light her face attractively fifteen pictures later. Fortunately, M-G-M took notice of her performance in this movie and signed her to a contract. Her roles and her charisma improved. But even with Arthur Martinelli's none-too-flattering photography in Star Reporter, she's still the movie's number-one attraction. The story – complete with some really crazy twists – is strictly dime-novel stuff, although it does engage one's interest adequately, thanks to Hunt's charisma and some solid acting by the support cast, particularly by Wallis Clark as the D.A., Morgan Wallace as the hero's dad and Virginia Howell in a meaty role (for once!) as our hero's mum. As for the hero himself, as played here by Warren Hull, although he acts the role vigorously, he makes little impression – but that's good. He's saddled with some really crazy twists in the plot, yet he cleverly manages to make us unaware as to just how unlikely and paper-thin these developments actually are! The movie was directed by Howard Bretherton, a first-class film editor (Heroes for Sale, Baby Face) but a less interesting – if reasonably competent – director.

A lot of plot for 62 minutes in this fast paced little entry in the "newspaper vs. mob" genre. Various characters on both sides of the law harbor secret (and not-so-secret) motives, hidden relationships, and the good old-fashioned grudges that D.A.s, gangsters, and newspaper reporters bounce back and forth among themselves. Along with all that are the two women in the story--fiancée and mother, each with her own concerns.At the center of it all, Warren Hull is not bad in the title role, though perhaps the most interesting thing about his character is how long it takes him to discover a basic fact of the plot that several other characters--both on his side and working against him--are keeping from him! Is it a lot to keep track of? Um, not particularly, since the plot moves along too fast for us to get too wrapped in the whole situation. But then, we don't have time to get bored either. Which is kind of what we expect from a B movie with a title like Star Reporter, right?

Marsha Hunt is the best thing about this low budget crime drama! Mongram studios like other low budget poverty row studios tried to compete with the majors by adding more action, sex or violence where they couldn't afford talent. And this story has more than your average plot twists... In this newspaper drama, a young man's father, a prominent newspaper publisher is violently murdered by famous gangsters. The young man uses the power of his newly inherited press to get revenge upon the killers by exposing them. Unfortunately, the young man's schemes go awry when he learns the identity of the trigger man. Plot devices include two sets of fathers, two signed confessions that gets stolen out of two safes, by two safe crackers!