Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Absolutely Fantastic

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Hollywood really had a bone to pick with journalists in the early 1930s. In 1931 it nominated "The Front Page" for its Best Picture Oscar and a year later did the same with "Five Star Final."The first film is a lot of fun, but I think I admired the latter film more. It's gritty and racy in that pre-code way films from this time period were, and it pulls no punches in going after newspapers and the sleazy lengths they'll go to -- and the lives they're willing to destroy -- in the pursuit of profits.Edward G. Robinson is just one of the best actors in movies ever. How can such an ugly mug of a guy command the screen the way he does? See this movie for an example of his screen presence."Five Star Final" belongs to the unique list of films that received an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture but no other nominations, something that hasn't happened since 1943 but that happened more frequently than you might think up to then.Grade: A

Five Star Final is 85 years old yet nothing has changed in that the public still has an appetite to read about filth in newspapers. The themes here would be looked at in many newspaper comedies throughout the 1930's, however this is no screwball comedy - it's deadly serious. I guess we can't say "back in my day journalists had ethics". The real life inspiration for Five Star Final came from a New York tabloid called New York Evening Graphic. At the time of the film release the Evening Graphic was losing circulation because its new editor was attempting to make it a more respectable paper, just like the character of Randall played by Edward G. Robinson the editor of the fictional tabloid newspaper The Gazette.Randall is an editor who is not without ethics. Despite the objections of the paper's management, "Randall won't print pictures of girls in underwear in the pictures section" and prints cables from The League of Nations. The pressure is on him to stop printing "actual news" and more sensationalist stories and gossip. When Randall gives in we see the full sleaze of Edward G. Robinson; after all nobody could do sleaze better than him.The stealer of the show however is Boris Karloff as Isopod. This isn't a horror movie but his performance feel like one straight from a horror picture with is distinctive, eerie voice. Isopod is a disgraced priest of whom Randall disguises as a practicing priest to go undercover and do the paper's dirty work; a creep who is full of crap and as Randall puts it "You're the most blasphemous looking thing I've ever seen". The name Isopod in Greek means 'even footed' but more commonly is the name an unpleasant looking order of crustacean parasites so I guess it works.The Gazette has a number of shady practices; they bully retailers and vandalise their stalls for not putting their papers on top. Likewise they employee a pretty girl played by Ona Munson to do dirty work for the paper although the main reason they're choosing her for the job is that she's not flat chested, as evident by the shot in which Aline MacMahon is clearly looking at her rack (even Isopod enjoys checking her out).In order the increase the circulation of The Gazette, Randall unearths a 20 year old murder case for the sake of a sensational story later titled, "Famous Killer's Girl to Wed Society Man". Today with this internet thing we've got going on it would be highly unlikely someone could hide the fact they were once tried for murder while Isopod could just get a photograph of the murder's daughter on Facebook. But the fact remains the same: sensationalist news stories can affect the lives of innocent associates.The film has a truly superb cast with everyone having their moment in the sun and this being a film set in the world of journalism, the dialogue flows at a rapid fire rate; a form of acting which is truly a thing of the past. Marian Marsh's breakdown at the end is hair raising melodramatic brilliance, even if her husband just happens to walk in as she pulls out a gun in a delightfully improbable turn of events.The production values are excellent helmed under the great director Mervyn Le Roy (such an impressive back catalogue). The use of sound in the opening credits with boys shouting "extra!" and the noise of the printing press sets the atmosphere while it's evident the studio strived for this production to have authentic sets. Many shots in Five Star Final have an impressive level of depth such as that of George E. Stone with his feet up in foreground as he sits back while on the phone.Five Star Final contains innovative use of split screen as Mrs Voorhes (Frances Starr) in the middle of the frame is trapped between paper employees who go about their business as usual and try to ignore her but also shows the paper as voyeuristic spies. Yes, the filmmakers sure love their symbolism here. Throughout the film Randall is constantly washing his hands ("50 times a day" apparently) while the paper employees going to the bar and drink in order to deal with their conscience. Likewise Randall's closeted love interest Miss Taylor played by Aline MacMahon has feelings towards him but objects to his job and the paper; she is symbolic of his conscious. To top it all off, the film ends with an image of the paper lying in the gutter like the filthy rag it is; a final powerful image to stick in your mind.

. . . FIVE STAR FINAL reassures America's moms that there are media Guardians to prevent Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, Casey Anthony, or Jody Arias from changing their name and marrying their sons or daughters (or having a secret child who'd do the same thing). The "Townsend Crime Family" pictured here cuts their murderess-gene-bearing ward "Jenny" off from all her paternal relatives, and raise her as a wanton second-generation gun-wielding hothead. "Joe Randall" (Edward G. Robinson), the courageously crusading managing editor of the New York Evening Gazette, makes sure beneficiaries of "jury nullification" such as O.J. Simpson, Ms. Anthony, Ms. Arias, and the Townsend matriarch "Nancy" do NOT go laughing all the way to the bank with their gold-digger marriages. But with America now being carpeted wall-to-wall with the National Enquirer as well as thousands of on-line watchdogs and Blogs, plus millions of cell phone cameras, there's less and less danger of sneaks such as the Townsends trying top rub elbows with normal people, let alone marry into their family trees. FIVE STAR FINAL put new teeth into American precepts such as "The Truth will out" and "You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you cannot always fool everybody as long as we have Wikipedia." FIVE STAR FINAL paved the way for ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN. Without it, King Richard I (a.k.a., President Milhous Nixon) might have been succeeded by Queen Julie lording it over us even today!

First, why do I say it is dated? It is a matter of acting tastes. While several of the leads (the always good Robinson and Karloff, Aline MacMahon, and H.B.Warner) give strong performances (witness Warner's last three minutes in the film as the strain of his wife's tragedy finally destroys him), there is too much of the 1931 "staginess" of the acting style of that day in FIVE STAR FINAL. Put this way: my mother (who watched the film with me) enjoyed it, but laughed at that staginess - she was born in 1928, so as a kid many movies of the early 1930s would have had that style of acting, and she found it archaic).Bernarr MacFadden is recalled (if at all) as a one time newspaper owner and food/diet/health faddist. The latter career is what most people remember (one of his diet/health followers was Greta Garbo). Coming from the hinterlands, MacFadden looked like a hick but had tremendous energy, ego, and ambition. He bought the failing New York Evening Graphic in the 1920s and taking full advantage of that age of ballyhoo turned it into the raggiest newspaper of the day. As mentioned he made up "photographs" supposedly showing the crimes and punishments he was reporting. He did everything to scoop the rival Hearst and other papers of news dirt. His intention was (as was Hearst's, with more plausibility) to build himself into a national figure for political office - hoping to eventually become President. It did not work (fortunately). I say that safely. I have read his editorials about the end of certain criminals, and he sounds not soporific but childish in the intensity of his dislike (in one of them he actually wrote something like, "Now, he's dead, dead, dead...that'll show him!" - I am not making that up!!).The depth of the Graphic's career really was in 1928. A ridiculous marriage-divorce case, that of millionaire landlord Edward Browning (age 70) and his young wife "Peaches" (age under 20) broke out, and instead of ignoring it and concentrating on real news, MacFadden actually did his idiotic fake photos on the front page. Browning apparently (like all husbands with their wives, or people with their sex companions) had private language with Peaches that the court revealed. When he wanted sex but badgered his wife he (supposedly) said "Woof, woof, don't be a goof!", and if he described intercourse he'd say, "Honk, honk, it's the bonk!". MacFadden showed Browning and Peaches in bedclothes in their bedroom, with cartoon balloons with the expressions in them. The "goof" expression was coming from Browning, but the "bonk" expression came from a goose or duck that was transposed into the frame of the picture (probably because the latter's "quack" is sometimes like a "honk").FIVE STAR FINAL was one of the favorite of Eddie Robinson. Coming a year after his breakout success in LITTLE CAESAR he was glad (for once) not to have to be a gangster but a city room editor on a tabloid ready to blow up. Robinson's Joseph Taylor has been working for a New York City newspaper for 10 years as editor (before that he worked on other papers, but none quite so sensational). The owner of this paper, Hinchcliffe (Oscar Apfel) is a respectable looking millionaire, but he is an arch-hypocrite. He likes higher and higher circulation and does not mind if he uses scandals to boost his paper. By the way, some of the best minor sequences in FIVE STAR FINAL show Hinchclffe and Robinson discussing items that have to be moved or dropped and the effects on the public. Apparently their dropping of some articles by former Black heavyweight champ Jack Johnson (about his girlfriends) caused a dip in the circulation sales in Harlem (Robinson adds to this tidbit by mentioning that his housekeeper stopped buying the newspaper when that happened!).The plot of the film is that a twenty year old homicide that resulted in the acquittal of the perpetrator is resurrected for circulation. The woman (Marian Marsh) has married (H.B.Warner) and has a daughter (Frances Carr) who is getting married to the son (Anthony Bushnell) of the a wealthy manufacturer. The revelation of the old scandal (skillfully hidden by Marsh and Warner) is threatened by the newspaper series. The older couple then compound the problem when they mistakenly trust Boris Karloff as a clergyman (he was a defrocked theology student, who now is a sleazy reporter). The revelations lead to deeper and deeper problems, and eventual tragedy.Aline MacMahon is Robinson's secretary (and girlfriend) who knows he is better than his activities suggest. But it is not until the tragedy that Robinson's self-loathing for his activities emerges. It determines him on a showdown with Apfel, which is complicated by the arrival of another party who wants a confrontation and an explanation.The film is good, if some of the dialog turns to be too racy (and even bigoted) at times. The issue of the limits of a free press are always with us, and this presents it quite well up to Robinson's final commentary and actions to show his disgust with his job.How true is it that we do not forgive old felons or suspects in crimes? It varies. Those who are pedophiles or sex criminals are rarely forgiven, especially as they have to register with the police in many jurisdictions. As for our murderers, well you have the example of O. J. Simpson, and how he may now be finally facing a delayed punishment in a different crime. On the other hand, you have the case of the successful detective story novelist Anne Perry, who went to prison as a juvenile for murder. There is no universal rule on accepting these people one way or another. It probably depends on the crime involved.