It's a tense moment and everything is up to radio reporter Chester Morris. He grabs his microphone and cable, and just as he turns to charge into the face of danger, he instructs the remote broadcast engineer: "Give them the signal to put me on the air right away!" –It's not a very likely story, but it makes for an entertaining show.
Morris as our hero is his usual fast-talking self—confident, imaginative, quick but cool under pressure—but this movie aims for some character development from his role as well. Early on, while Chester's interested only in the facts of a case and in his own promotion, his broadcast partner attempts to tell him that there's more to life than headlines: "Someday something's gonna come and hit you in the kisser," he says. "Then you'll know what I'm talking about." And sure enough, something does come along
.
Namely, Jean Parker as the sister of an accused murderer whom Morris helps to capture. Parker is quite good—the dialog isn't exactly brilliant, but she is allowed to express anger, confusion, affection, concern, a whole range of emotions, and she doesn't skimp on the theatrics, or overdo them either.
Dick Purcell is fun as a flamboyant rival reporter. (Purcell and Morris refer to each other as Nip and Tuck and have an ongoing competition over which one gets to be Nip.) A variety of other familiar B movie faces are also on hand.
The plot isn't much
.in fact, the version of this movie that I watched had several minutes missing (cut for TV at some point?) so there were moments in the first half of the film where I had absolutely no idea what was going on. I caught up, more or less, and the second half of the film seemed pretty much intact; but anyone watching a 65-minute version of the film will want to know that the full picture was once 73 minutes
and yes, you can tell there's something missing.
Overall, though—it's a neat little B mystery-adventure-romance.
