I enjoyed this film very much. Among its delights is an impressive performance by Linda Watkins (who?) as the heroine. Watkins is attractive, energetic and a good actress. For some reason, after making a handful of films in the early 1930s, she dropped out of sight for twenty years, then reappeared in bit roles on television. 'Sob Sister' shows that she could have had a major Hollywood career.
We start out splendidly, with impressive opening credits (more elaborate than usual for the Fox Film Corporation) resembling a newspaper's display ad. Then we're firmly in 1930s newspaper-movie territory, as men wearing snap-brim trilbies indoors are shouting into black Bakelite candlestick telephones. The candlestick phone is the emblematic symbol of all those newspaper movies, so I was delighted by one scene in this film in which a newspaper editor (Charles Middleton, oddly cast but effective) talks into a phone while an enormous shadow of a candlestick telephone looms behind him. Ironically, Middleton is using a cradle telephone.
The movie starts out with rival reporters covering the murder of a young woman, and invading her family's privacy to get a scoop. This sequence made me uneasy for purely personal reasons: in 1975, as a Fleet Street stringer, I covered the murder of heiress Lesley Whittle, and this movie brought back some unpleasant memories for me. But soon enough the plot moves in another direction, involving a kidnapped child.
SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD. Watkins and James Dunn (excellent, as usual) are the rival reporters. This is one of those movies in which a woman, competing against several men, beats them at their own game by playing dirtier. Several competing reporters get a big story in a remote location; there's only one telephone line in a 17-mile radius. Watkins gets to the phone first, so the reporters from all the other papers patiently wait their turn as she phones her editor. But once she's finished, she cuts the phone line so that nobody else can use it. Speaking of limited telephone access, Ward Bond plays a motorcycle cop who has to contact headquarters by cadging a nickel so he can use a coin phone. Times have changed!
There are some extremely impressive sets in this movie (including a multi-storey courtyard), and some very impressive camera movement through those sets. I was also impressed by a rooftop set (filmed on a soundstage, masquerading as outdoors) with forced-perspective models of the distant skyscrapers. Some of the sets in this movie are TOO impressive: Watkins is a newspaper reporter, presumably with the tiny salary to match, yet somehow she lives in an enormous elaborate apartment with a fireplace. Her bathroom has a washbasin and a radiator, but no discernible toilet. (Ah, 1930s Hollywood!)
Practically every actor in this cast gives an excellent performance, notably Edward Dillon (who?) in a comedy-relief role that turns out relevant to the plot, and George E. Stone. Stone usually played ineffectual weaklings; here, he's very impressive as a criminal behind bars who still exudes menace. (In real life, Stone had a few gangster friends.) Maurice Black is good as a thug who's nicknamed Gimp even though he has only a very slight limp. More positively, there's a scene in which Watkins is bound and gagged, and (for once) a character in a movie has been gagged properly. Watkins's arms are tied behind her back; she frees herself by burning the ropes, and the sequence is filmed brilliantly, showing that a genuine flame is burning dangerously close to the actress (not a stunt double).
One thing that I DON'T like about old Hollywood movies is the visual device of a front-page headline to convey information which is important only to the characters in the movie, not to the public in general. 'Sob Sister' ends with Dunn and Watkins — two lowly newspaper reporters — getting married, and somehow this minor event rates the entire front page of a newspaper. I couldn't buy that bit, and earlier in the film I couldn't believe that the romance of these two obscure journos would rate a mention in the column of (fictional) Broadway journalist Winch Markel, an obvious amalgam of real showbiz columnists Walter Winchell and Mark Hellinger.
Despite a few implausibilities, almost everything here is a non-stop delight. Why isn't 'Sob Sister' better known? I'll rate this movie 9 out of 10. Get me Rewrite!
We start out splendidly, with impressive opening credits (more elaborate than usual for the Fox Film Corporation) resembling a newspaper's display ad. Then we're firmly in 1930s newspaper-movie territory, as men wearing snap-brim trilbies indoors are shouting into black Bakelite candlestick telephones. The candlestick phone is the emblematic symbol of all those newspaper movies, so I was delighted by one scene in this film in which a newspaper editor (Charles Middleton, oddly cast but effective) talks into a phone while an enormous shadow of a candlestick telephone looms behind him. Ironically, Middleton is using a cradle telephone.
The movie starts out with rival reporters covering the murder of a young woman, and invading her family's privacy to get a scoop. This sequence made me uneasy for purely personal reasons: in 1975, as a Fleet Street stringer, I covered the murder of heiress Lesley Whittle, and this movie brought back some unpleasant memories for me. But soon enough the plot moves in another direction, involving a kidnapped child.
SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD. Watkins and James Dunn (excellent, as usual) are the rival reporters. This is one of those movies in which a woman, competing against several men, beats them at their own game by playing dirtier. Several competing reporters get a big story in a remote location; there's only one telephone line in a 17-mile radius. Watkins gets to the phone first, so the reporters from all the other papers patiently wait their turn as she phones her editor. But once she's finished, she cuts the phone line so that nobody else can use it. Speaking of limited telephone access, Ward Bond plays a motorcycle cop who has to contact headquarters by cadging a nickel so he can use a coin phone. Times have changed!
There are some extremely impressive sets in this movie (including a multi-storey courtyard), and some very impressive camera movement through those sets. I was also impressed by a rooftop set (filmed on a soundstage, masquerading as outdoors) with forced-perspective models of the distant skyscrapers. Some of the sets in this movie are TOO impressive: Watkins is a newspaper reporter, presumably with the tiny salary to match, yet somehow she lives in an enormous elaborate apartment with a fireplace. Her bathroom has a washbasin and a radiator, but no discernible toilet. (Ah, 1930s Hollywood!)
Practically every actor in this cast gives an excellent performance, notably Edward Dillon (who?) in a comedy-relief role that turns out relevant to the plot, and George E. Stone. Stone usually played ineffectual weaklings; here, he's very impressive as a criminal behind bars who still exudes menace. (In real life, Stone had a few gangster friends.) Maurice Black is good as a thug who's nicknamed Gimp even though he has only a very slight limp. More positively, there's a scene in which Watkins is bound and gagged, and (for once) a character in a movie has been gagged properly. Watkins's arms are tied behind her back; she frees herself by burning the ropes, and the sequence is filmed brilliantly, showing that a genuine flame is burning dangerously close to the actress (not a stunt double).
One thing that I DON'T like about old Hollywood movies is the visual device of a front-page headline to convey information which is important only to the characters in the movie, not to the public in general. 'Sob Sister' ends with Dunn and Watkins — two lowly newspaper reporters — getting married, and somehow this minor event rates the entire front page of a newspaper. I couldn't buy that bit, and earlier in the film I couldn't believe that the romance of these two obscure journos would rate a mention in the column of (fictional) Broadway journalist Winch Markel, an obvious amalgam of real showbiz columnists Walter Winchell and Mark Hellinger.
Despite a few implausibilities, almost everything here is a non-stop delight. Why isn't 'Sob Sister' better known? I'll rate this movie 9 out of 10. Get me Rewrite!