Bannerline Reviews

An interesting premise highlights this Metro release. Brasselle is a young reporter who comes up with the idea of publishing a bogus front page detailing all the civic reforms that Barrymore, a dying professor, has proposed in their town. Then Brasselle enlists Lewis Stone, who runs the paper's morgue, to help him and they manage to get the phony front page tacked on to the regular newspaper. Brasselle is hoping the townspeople will take notice and rise up against Naish, who is the local heavyweight gangster. Like most Americans, the townspeople are too busy with their own problems and let the whole thing slide. Naish, however, is incensed. His hoodlums beat the banjo eyes out of Brasselle (who also played Eddie Cantor, you might recall) and the authorities finally do take notice. Naish is defeated, Brasselle takes up with Forrest, and all wraps up well. Schnee writes some sharp dialog and the Raphaelson story eschews the usual cliches. Weis's direction is slow (as it was in most of his career), but the material is worthy.