a5c7b9f00b Larry Doyle, a reporter fond of hard-and-much drinking, insults his city editor on one of his drunken sprees. When he alter awakens, he finds he is on a train bound for St. Louis, and has one dollar and a revolver in his pocket. He also finds he is involved in some kind of crime plot, and a whirlwind romance with a cutie named Anne Olgivie. He sets out to resolve both issues.
When he runs short of money, a newspaper reporter pawns a police revolver he was given after he helped the police solve a case. Later on the gun is used in a murder, and the reporter is suspected of committing the crime.
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.<br/><br/>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.'<br/><br/>He has an easy hookup with a perky girl, though cleanly post-code.<br/><br/>Our reporter is an adventure-loving party man (which then meant an occasional drunk) who cannot keep money and who hates authority.<br/><br/>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.<br/><br/>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).<br/><br/>Good digging here, if you have the patience.<br/><br/>Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.
The Mystery Man (1935)<br/><br/>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. <br/><br/>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.<br/><br/>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. <br/><br/>You would do better plodding through the worst of the Mr. Moto or the Charlie Chan films than this one.