The Mystery Man (1935)

Robert Armstrong (Larry Doyle), Maxine Doyle (Ann), Henry Kolker (Jonas), James Burke (Marvin), Guy Usher (District Attorney Johnson), LeRoy Mason (The Eel), Dell Henderson (hotel manager), Monte Collins (Dunn), Norman Houston (Whistler), James P. Burtis (Whalen), Sam Lufkin (Weeks), Otto Fries (pawnbroker), Sam Flint (Jerome Roberts, the publisher), Stanley Blystone (waiter), Herb Vigran (fingerprint man), Frfed Kelsey, Bruce Mitchell (policemen), Harry Strang (train depot tightwad), Lee Shumway, Rollo Lloyd.Director: RAY McCAREY. Screenplay: John W. Krafft, Rollo Lloyd. Adapted by William A. Johnston from a story by Tate Finn. Photography: Harry Neumann. Film editor: Carl Pierson. Art director: E.R. Hickson. Sound recording: John A. Stransky, junior. Producer: George Yohalem. Executive producer: Trem Carr. Copyright 28 February 1935 by Monogram Pictures Corporation. U.S. release: 12 February 1935. No recorded New York opening. 67 minutes. SYNOPSIS: After being fired from his job in Chicago, a top crime reporter talks his way into the employ of a tabloid in St Louis.COMMENT: A pleasant but rather action-less little movie, spun out with loads of talk. Fortunately, the players led by live-wire Robert Armstrong and the really super-cute Maxine Doyle do manage to sustain interest. Well, even my interest anyway. But I think everyone will admit that even James Burke has a spicy role. And the really-really good news is that production values are unusually glossy by Monogram's generally rather humble standards.

Cinematic archeology is what this is all about. The film has lost all its appeal as the hooks have gone out of style. But we can see major chunks that have evolved to what we have now.The basic setup is the fold of a reporter as a detective, a miraculously simple concept in narration, as his job is to 'get the story.'He has an easy hookup with a perky girl, though cleanly post-code.Our reporter is an adventure-loving party man (which then meant an occasional drunk) who cannot keep money and who hates authority.The environment is one in which police are inept and essentially invisible, and 'the paper' runs the town behind the scenes. You can easily see the seeds of noir here.Oh, and we have a stereotyped villain, a mystery man who calls himself The Eel and who calls to taunt police (represented by the DA).Good digging here, if you have the patience.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

The Mystery Man (1935)Well this is a fast hoot, and not a good movie by any means. It has a chipper tone and some comic twists, but the acting, the acting. The core idea is good--a news reporter with a thankless editor gets caught up in a story while on leave from his Chicago paper. But the St. Louis newspaper won't believe he's a reporter, and he gets stranded and eventually accused. Luckily his buddies back home help out, and even better, a pretty girl is also stranded and helpless and good for moral support and some cleverness in the nick of time. Coulda been something.It's not like 1935 is too early for a snappy, intelligent crime detective caper film. We've already had a string of absolute classics from Warner Bros. in the early 30s, and we're seeing the beginning of the "Thin Man" series with its high level of sophistication. But this is a B-movie through and through, and I guess there is only so much talent to go around. You would do better plodding through the worst of the Mr. Moto or the Charlie Chan films than this one.

This uneasy cross between a "Front Page" style newspaper yarn and a cops and robbers movie was entertaining at times but never really dramatically engaging. It was made less than a decade after the stage version, and only a few years after the Menjou/O'Brien version of Front Page. The comedic elements in the first part of the movie, as well as some funny ironic dialog come out of the interactions between news hound Larry Doyle, his editor, and his fellow reporters, come from that style of film. Halfway through, we leave that movie and enter into a crime flick, with a decent ingénue mistaken for Mrs. Doyle (played by an actress who was really named Doyle, by the way) and a case of mistaken identity leaving the reporter holding the bag. The resolution is not very clever, and the light tone of the first part of the movie means we're never really worried something bad will happen in the second. I mean, if it had been made in the 1970's, that may have happened, but in 1935, no way.There's a really neat moment at the end, though, that illustrates how in the 1930's everyone knew that newspapers could make or break elected officials, and how the publishers could influence what was published. I don't know when we lost that breezy cynicism about money and media, but I prefer it to the sacred cow of editorial independence that characterized the movies about the media I watched growing up. Doesn't really save the movie, but it is an interesting difference from things 75 years ago.