Back in the days when radio jingle singers harmonized words like ba-na-na to a Latin rhythm, the airwaves broadcast 'tell-all' shows in which a host like Louella Parsons or Walter Winchell would dish about which celebrity or scion had been caught doing what. The host of Okay, America! is Larry Wayne (Lew Ayres). He writes columns by day, with the help of his gal Friday, Barton (Maureen O'Sullivan), and reports sensational happenings by night over the air. He collects stories about the well-to-do from the cigarette girl at a cafe and a homeless drunk. But he tracks them down, too. His appearance at a night club makes wandering husbands wish they'd never stepped out with that pretty young thing and their wives wish it wasn't their turn to be humiliated by the next morning's paper.
A lot of his life appears to be playing Dick Tracy. When he gets a tip-off on the abduction of a local damsel (who happens to be the daughter of the best friend of the President, FDR), he doesn't just divulge what has happened. He personally accosts the criminal gang in their lair all by his lonesome. He decides to act as the go-between of the girl's suffering parents and the gang that wants a pay-off. He will bring the woman back alive. And he does all this without any interference from the police, thank you, nor the police commissioner whom he orders around. Self-confidence does not elude him here, or later when the stakes become life or death. Apparently a daredevil, he likes to use his spare time this way. He is one of those guys who handily knows everyone in town through whom he might secretly communicate to the underworld. And through all this, he continues his daily reports of sexual improprieties as his radio listeners wait for him to produce the lost girl alive.
He reveals the private indiscretions of the very-important because he thinks no one should be made a dupe, as he once was when his fiancé secretly pursued a wealthy married man. He says everyone knew she was playing him, but no one ever told him. They just watched. Larry is so watchful he could work in the sociology department of his favorite police precinct, but he is no silent sideline observer. His romance gone bad has made him a rebel with a cause: to pull the curtain back on the fraud of the upper class. Never was a rebel so suited for his job. He picks up stories as easily as an officer dusting for prints, he fends off gun-toting men who object, and then he publishes.
The brisk pace of the film is helped along by the introduction of a pivotal character, played by a well-known supporting actor, in the last third of the film. Through the placement of this character, we are able to see that, despite the havoc his profession wrecks on people's personal lives, Larry is a man who will take it on the chin to spare someone else. He is such a cool cat as he goes about this high-stakes living, you might say he is above emotion. That is how he manages to give you such a surprise at the film's denouement. He shrinks from nothing. This is one writer/broadcaster who is a character himself.
A lot of his life appears to be playing Dick Tracy. When he gets a tip-off on the abduction of a local damsel (who happens to be the daughter of the best friend of the President, FDR), he doesn't just divulge what has happened. He personally accosts the criminal gang in their lair all by his lonesome. He decides to act as the go-between of the girl's suffering parents and the gang that wants a pay-off. He will bring the woman back alive. And he does all this without any interference from the police, thank you, nor the police commissioner whom he orders around. Self-confidence does not elude him here, or later when the stakes become life or death. Apparently a daredevil, he likes to use his spare time this way. He is one of those guys who handily knows everyone in town through whom he might secretly communicate to the underworld. And through all this, he continues his daily reports of sexual improprieties as his radio listeners wait for him to produce the lost girl alive.
He reveals the private indiscretions of the very-important because he thinks no one should be made a dupe, as he once was when his fiancé secretly pursued a wealthy married man. He says everyone knew she was playing him, but no one ever told him. They just watched. Larry is so watchful he could work in the sociology department of his favorite police precinct, but he is no silent sideline observer. His romance gone bad has made him a rebel with a cause: to pull the curtain back on the fraud of the upper class. Never was a rebel so suited for his job. He picks up stories as easily as an officer dusting for prints, he fends off gun-toting men who object, and then he publishes.
The brisk pace of the film is helped along by the introduction of a pivotal character, played by a well-known supporting actor, in the last third of the film. Through the placement of this character, we are able to see that, despite the havoc his profession wrecks on people's personal lives, Larry is a man who will take it on the chin to spare someone else. He is such a cool cat as he goes about this high-stakes living, you might say he is above emotion. That is how he manages to give you such a surprise at the film's denouement. He shrinks from nothing. This is one writer/broadcaster who is a character himself.