The first thing I noticed about this one is how similar it looks to Citizen Kane and the Magnificent Ambersons. Obviously the content is different but the "no-name" actors and the period script are pretty similar. Even the similar shots and angles.
A righteous newspaper reporter gets tired of the garbage print his boss/owner puts out in her paper. He doesn't deem it newsworthy and she decides to fire him. Immediately after his local bar fly friends help him in starting a newspaper based on honesty, integrity and real news. The main issue is his former boss, a female, thinks he's wasting his time. As time goes by his small paper is getting more and more press and better stories than hers and she decides it's time to stop it in all the wrong ways.
The brutality of how bad the newspaper wars were back in the late 1800's is quite real in this film . Samuel Fuller pulls no punches showing what it was really like. I won't go into detail but trust me, the lengths they go through to stop his paper is ghastly. I think my main issue with this film is how "idealistic" the lead is in this. It's not real to me. It's almost an ABC after school special on newspaper integrity. The other is the actors themselves. There's only 2 you'll recognize when you see this. First is the lead and second you'll know as the "little fat mayor" from the Andy Griffith Show. After these 2 what you get is a mish mash of performances that were just....well...dull imo. The one very positive I walked away from in this was Samuel Fuller himself. With better actors this could have been a lot better. His directing is stellar. There's a reason why he was respected in the film industry...and despised. He wouldn't give in to Directing just any film. He did whatever he wanted and what subjects he thought important. In this, it's a noble effort but it it wasn't anything special to me.
To me, newspapers or any media type or source only print or spew out news they deem honest and integral to the public. The problem is, most of the time, it's rarely ever accurate...or even true.
A righteous newspaper reporter gets tired of the garbage print his boss/owner puts out in her paper. He doesn't deem it newsworthy and she decides to fire him. Immediately after his local bar fly friends help him in starting a newspaper based on honesty, integrity and real news. The main issue is his former boss, a female, thinks he's wasting his time. As time goes by his small paper is getting more and more press and better stories than hers and she decides it's time to stop it in all the wrong ways.
The brutality of how bad the newspaper wars were back in the late 1800's is quite real in this film . Samuel Fuller pulls no punches showing what it was really like. I won't go into detail but trust me, the lengths they go through to stop his paper is ghastly. I think my main issue with this film is how "idealistic" the lead is in this. It's not real to me. It's almost an ABC after school special on newspaper integrity. The other is the actors themselves. There's only 2 you'll recognize when you see this. First is the lead and second you'll know as the "little fat mayor" from the Andy Griffith Show. After these 2 what you get is a mish mash of performances that were just....well...dull imo. The one very positive I walked away from in this was Samuel Fuller himself. With better actors this could have been a lot better. His directing is stellar. There's a reason why he was respected in the film industry...and despised. He wouldn't give in to Directing just any film. He did whatever he wanted and what subjects he thought important. In this, it's a noble effort but it it wasn't anything special to me.
To me, newspapers or any media type or source only print or spew out news they deem honest and integral to the public. The problem is, most of the time, it's rarely ever accurate...or even true.