Fluent early talkie with a fairly mobile camera and some fine, restrained acting, especially from the always-amazing Walter Huston, as a star reporter who regrets how his all-consuming newspaper work has kept him away from his daughter (Betty Lawford, also very good). So he quits and takes a high-paying PR job for a mausoleum. executive, cueing some easy mausoleum jokes, and an I'm-drunk-aren't-I-hilarious turn from Charlie Ruggles, as a journalist pal. The plot takes some unpredictable turns, with a chic Kay Francis turning up as a real rotter of a femme fatale, who not only entraps Huston into an unwanted affair but makes a play for his son-in-law. But the finale, involving his daughter and a tragic turn of events, comes out of nowhere and is so sorrowful, it feels glued on. The writer, Bartlett Cormack, was a solid practitioner who also penned "The Racket" around the same time, and the welcome chorus of wisecracking, inebriated reporters might have wandered in from "The Front Page." It's a compelling little melodrama and a must for Kay Francis and Walter Huston fans, but the last seven minutes or so feel like they were dropped in from another movie.
Review of Gentlemen of the Press
