Fly Away Baby (1937)

Fly Away Baby is the second in the Torchy Blane series about a smart girl newspaper reporter whose boyfriend is a police detective. I thought Glenda Ferrell was good in Smart Blonde. Both movies have the same director and the detective boyfriend is the same actor, but somehow Fly Away Baby just isn't a very interesting story. As another user points out, it includes the rather absurd situation of a "race" between three people who all fly together on the same planes. There is one especially interesting thing about this movie. It was based in part on Dorothy Kilgallen, who was a real female crime reporter and later became popular on the TV show "What's My Line?" Dorothy Kilgallen actually raced around the world against two other people, then wrote a book about it called Girl Around the World. She came in second, so evidently that race was real. I'm giving Fly Away Baby three stars for Glenda Farrell's performance as Torchy, but as a mystery it really falls flat. Note, if you like Glenda Farrell, I highly recommend the 1933 movie Mystery of the Wax Museum.

Some of the Torchy Blane films are better than others and Fly Away Baby falls in the middle. Now you have to approach these series films with a more charitable perspective. Except for The Thin Man series all the series films back in the studio days were B picture programmers.Fly Away Baby has reporter Torchy Blane hot on the trail of a jewel thief and murderer. She's got one suspect in her sights, but another comes as a bit of a surprise to her. Of course she's once again treading on the toes of her homicide cop boyfriend Barton MacLane as Lieutenant Steve McBride. MacLane is the original alpha male, but Glenda Farrell gives as good as she gets.In fact even when the plots are sub par as this one really is, the Torchy Blane series always has that marvelous chemistry between Farrell and MacLane. Farrell in this series gets a chance to shine in a way she never did mostly getting parts that Joan Blondell rejected at Warner Brothers. These two are like a working class Tracy and Hepburn.And Barton MacLane I'm told was a whole lot like Steve McBride other than a lot of four letter words peppered his daily conversation. Usually he's a bad guy in his early film days, but it's a treat to see him on the side of the law. Folks always seem to be a step ahead of him though whether it's Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon or Torchy in this series.Also there's Tom Kennedy who gives a droll performance as that thick as a brick assistant. Torchy and McBride are miles ahead of him.

A man is murdered in his apartment and thousands of dollars worth of diamonds are stolen. There is little evidence to trace the killer with, although Torchy Blane (Glenda Farrell) does manage to find the murder weapon. She is convinced that Lucien Croy (Gordon Oliver) had something to do with it, although Lt. McBride (Barton MacLane) is not so sure. Croy seems to have an airtight alibi. On top of the investigation, Croy is going on a trip round the world as a publicity stunt for his newspaper. Torchy decides that tagging along is the perfect way to track him in spite of McBride's wishes.A fun movie throughout, this second of the Torchy Blane films is entertaining but unimportant. There is a formula to these movies. Man is murdered, Torchy and McBride team up to solve it, it is solved, they announce their impending marriage. It isn't the story that makes these films rewatchable; it is the vibrant personality of Farrell. A beauty with brains, she is incredibly under-appreciated.

Jeweler Milton Deveraux is murdered during a break in of his store. Lt. Steve MacBride is perplexed, but girlfriend Torchy Blane suspects Lucien Croy, reporter for the rival Star Telegram (who is only on the paper because his father, owner and publisher, wants him to earn a living ) because Croy has amassed large gambling debts, but Croy is alibied by Guy Allister (Deveraux's partner) and Ila Sayre (nightclub singer and Croy's girlfriend). Torchy still suspects Croy of being part of the jewel heist, so thanks to her editor and publisher, accompanies him on a promotional race-around-the-world flight, also joined by Hughie Sprague (reporter for the Daily Journal) and former police traffic driver, Gahagan, who is now a private detective watching Sprague for some reason. Ila later confesses to MacBride that Croy's alibi was not what it seemed, and MacBride races to Frankfurt to arrest Croy for the murder of Deveraux and the jewel theft, but is it as simple as all that? Excellent entry in the Torchy Blane series with plenty of mystery that left this viewer curious to the end, with plenty of twists and turns. The performances of Farrell and MacLane are the same fun as the last picture (also picking up where the last film left off with Torchy trying to get MacBride to the altar) and the comic relief between Kennedy (Gahagan) and O'Connell (Sprague) was played down to the point where it was enjoyable. Rating, based on B mysteries, 8.