I love newspaper movies. So imagine how much I looked forward to this:

 

 

But what's under the title? What's the front page headline?

 

 

I have no idea what that means. It might as well say "AND SAYS LIVER LOTION." I'm almost afraid to google it, in case there's an explanation.

Oh, who am I kidding. Googling . . . good LORD the internet is an amazing things, especially Google; here's a page that gives you the month-by-month / year-by-year / decade-by-decade occurance of the term in their collection of digitized newspapers. Anyway, it's a law: "laws in nine states that allow for the recovery of some or all of the following causes of action: alienation of affection, criminal conversion, break of promise to marry and seduction."

Says another page: "Heart balm actions make for very nasty court cases, and only nine states -- Illinois, Hawaii, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Dakota and Utah -- still permit them. Such actions require the naming of a co-respondent, who generally becomes a defendant in the divorce."

It's a bit clearer now. And we know what kind of paper this is: one of those scandalous rags that puts private lives all over the front page. Like "Picture Snatcher," it's all about the scurrilous press, but it's not as much fun, and Edward G. doesn't have Cagney's scrappy enthusiasm. It doesn't feel like a newspaper movie at all, really; this is about all we see of the newsroom.

 

 

It has its moments, mostly loud and melodramatic ones, but any movie that contains a good saloon sequence with Robinson working the hell out of a cheroot is worth your time:

 

 

This lass was the secretary, Secretly In Love With Her Boss. I post this for one reason: this was how you talked on the phone with one hand. Reciever and speaker in between your fingers, the entire apparatus close to your face. Those were heavy, too.

 


 

Some comedy is provided by an unscrupulous reporter who's boiled half the time, and makes for an amusing drunk:

 

 

 

Yes: it's him.

 

 

You can find the trailer for the movie here; it's not embeddable.