God gives us heartache and the devil gives us whiskey.
Five Star Final (1931) - watched 8/28/24
Director: Mervyn LeRoy
Writer: Byron Morgan, Robert Lord
Starring: Edward G. Robinson, Marian Marsh, H.B. Warner, Frances Starr
Available to watch? To rent or buy on most platforms
First Time Watch? Yes
I’m wondering when we’ll see our next big film dismantling some of the more sinister and predatory practices of modern day journalism. Off the top of my head, I’m hard-pressed to think of one from the last decade that truly tears down the institution of modern journalism.1 We have plenty of examples of journalists as scrappy, tenacious heroes, those who uncover the important stories that otherwise have been buried deep by those in power. And these stories are important! Believe me, I loved Spotlight and can’t wait to cover it once we get to the 88th Academy Awards in, oh… five years or so. 🙃
But there’s a dark underbelly there to explore, especially in today’s age of social media and internet virality, mis-and-disinformation, AI-generated content, “cancel culture,” and our society’s longstanding tradition of celebrity worship. We’ve seen the consequences of sensationalism in the media many times over, in real life, so why has this been so under-explored in film recently?
It’s especially puzzling, considering what a popular topic this was in the early days of film. What changed? Why have these types of stories fallen out of favor? With the way media has evolved, there is plenty of material to be mined. Maybe the fatigue is too much—we live in this muck, we’re bombarded with it every day, so do we really need to watch a work of fiction about it?
It seems like the closest we’ve been able to get is the trend of lampooning tech CEOs. They’re easy targets—people like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, etc. are all very visible, very weird, outlandishly wealthy and out of touch. They are cartoon villains brought to life. They’re almost universally disliked by us mere commonfolk, and it’s endlessly satisfying to see them get their comeuppance, even if it’s just a fantasy played out through fiction.
Journalism and journalists as a whole aren’t quite as easy to vilify. I think we want to believe that journalism is noble work, that journalists seek to do the right thing. And maybe that’s largely true. But there’s no denying that irresponsible practices run rampant in modern day journalism, and it’s imperative that we confront those who perpetuate those practices.
It’s tough. I get it. I don’t engage much with news media these days—I’ve had to delete various apps from my phone, and unsubscribe from multiple publications that I used to read daily, because it all got to be so overwhelming that my brain felt bogged down by pure sludge. I was unable to let go of certain headlines, certain videos, certain stories. It takes a toll. But at the same time, it can feel cowardly to bow out, even for the sake of my own mental health.
What would happen if we all just decided to deliberately look away?
Five Star FInal gives us at least one possible answer.
They don’t throw you out of speakeasies, they carry you out.
Circulation has been dwindling steadily for New York tabloid publication New York Evening Gazette. Its editor, Joseph Randall (Edward G. Robinson), who we don’t meet until at least a full ten minutes into the film, has been trying to turn the paper into a more respectable publication by running fewer sensationalized stories and more legitimate journalism, but this strategy clearly isn’t working. The owner of the paper, Bernard Hinchecliffe (Oscar Apfel) has an idea to boost sales—run a series about a murder that happened 20 years ago. Sure! Why not!
The murder in question was committed by Nancy Voorhees (Frances Starr), who killed her boss after he impregnated her and backed down from marrying her. Her pregnancy garnered sympathy from the jury and she was acquitted. Fast forward 20 years, Nancy Voorhees is now Nancy Townsend, living a quiet life with her husband, Michael. Nancy’s daughter, Jenny (Marian Marsh), is unaware of her mother’s crime, and that Michael is not her biological father. Jenny is also a day away from getting married to Philip Weeks (Anthony Bushell), a member of high society in some way.
The family is at first blissfully unaware of what the Gazette is cooking up, but when they see the paper that evening, after Jenny and Philip have left, they see a headline promoting the series about the murder. When Randall sends the very creepy and very unscrupulous reporter Isopod (Boris Karloff) to pose as the young couple’s minister, Nancy and Michael trust him at first, and divulge their concerns to him. They grow suspicious after Isopod leaves, recalling that some of his behavior was unusual. Isopod goes back to Randall with his intel, and they’re off to the races.
The paper runs the first of the series the next day. Jenny is still unaware, as she prepares for the wedding. Philip’s parents, especially his mother, try to call the wedding off, declaring that their son will not marry the daughter of a murderess. Nancy and Michael manage to hold them off, while Nancy makes desperate calls to the Gazette offices in an attempt to stop them from running the rest of the story. She is transferred back and forth between Hinchecliffe and Randall, and neither of them will take her call. Distraught and with nowhere else to turn, Nancy poisons herself.
Michael, who has been at the church attempting to gain support, returns home and discovers Nancy’s body. Jenny and Philip arrive, and Michael does not tell them what has happened—a choice! He pretends that everything is okay, and even fakes a phone call with Nancy to keep up the ruse. Once Jenny and Philip leave, Michael also drinks the poison and dies.
Randall has sent two reporters to the Townsend household, Ziggie (George E. Stone) and Kitty Carmody (Ona Munson). When they don’t receive an answer at the door, they climb through the windows—very cool!—looking for Nancy and Michael. Well, they find them all right. Once they discover the bodies, they call Randall—a lot of this movie takes place over the phone—who now wants to run the story as the Gazette’s final edition of the day—the five star final.
The next day, Philip’s parents are again insisting that he call off the wedding. He refuses. Philip… kind of rocks. At the offices of the Gazette, Randall is having a change of conscience. He gets drunk out of guilt and has his staff drop the rest of the story. Hinchecliffe has other plans—he wants to offer Jenny money for the rights to tell her mother’s story, which Randall is vehemently against. Jenny shows up at the Gazette, demanding to know why they killed her mother. She asks Randall and Hinchecliffe this over and over—”Why did you kill my mother?”
When Randall admits that her mother died because they needed to sell more papers, she pulls out a gun and points it at him. Philip arrives just in time to stop her from shooting Randall, but he warns the men that if they ever publish Jenny’s name in their paper again he will kill them. Again… Philip rocks.
Randall resigns from the paper. The next day, a copy of the Gazatte with a headline about Nancy and Michael’s deaths is swept away in a gutter drenched in rain and debris, already yesterday’s news.
I think you can always get people interested in the crucifixion of a woman.
I found Five Star Final to be an interesting, compelling, well-written and acted movie, especially when I compare it to the previous year’s journalism takedown, The Front Page. The film really hits its stride in the second half, when you are confronted with the tragic effects that sensationalized tabloids can have on their subjects. I found the dialogue to be one of its greater strengths, as I could barely keep up with the amount of quotable lines churned out from scene to scene. The performances, especially toward the end, can verge on
I mainly want to call out the performance of one of the actors who hasn’t been mentioned yet—Aline MacMahon as Miss Taylor, Randall’s lovelorn secretary, who also serves as the moral center throughout the film. She is openly against running the story on Nancy Voorhees from the beginning, though other than some biting quips she unfortunately doesn’t have much bearing on the direction of the plot, which is a shame. In another version of this story, I can easily see Miss Taylor going rogue, alerting the Townsend family of her colleagues’ plans at the Gazette, and finding some way to stop it, to prevent tragedy from occurring.
But the movie doesn’t really work without the tragedy, of course. Nancy and Michael’s deaths, shocking as they are, serve to demonstrate what can happen when the media is irresponsible with its reporting, and the handling of its subjects.
Up until the end, when it’s too late, Randall does not stop to consider how the story could affect Nancy, or her family. In fact, Randall is seen washing his hands frequently throughout the film—as if to wash away any guilt and responsibility. When Randall quits his job at the Gazette, he washes his hands a final time, with soap and water, literally washing his hands of this profession. One could also say that with this gesture, he is absolving himself of responsibility, of distancing himself from the paper once and for all.
We’re meant to believe that this is a moment of redemption for Randall, at least that’s how I read it. But Randall was complicit in the exploitative practices of the Gazette, and he had the power to stop it all along. He could have listened to Nancy over the phone one of the many times she desperately called. He couldn’t have known what would eventually happened, because he didn’t care. The consequences of publishing her story didn’t even cross his mind.
But Miss Taylor? She knew.
I’ve been in this game too long to be ashamed of myself.
Quick Facts:
Nominated for 1 Academy Award, won none
Best Picture
The film was widely denounced by many newspapers for its negative depiction of the journalistic profession. The big guy himself, William Randolph Hearst, hated the movie and tried to get it banned.
Stray Observations:
They need to make one of these about TMZ
Somehow a lot of movies of this era unfold in such a way that I find it super hard to follow until like a half hour in. I’m probably very dumb.
They used to have something called a “contest editor”???
Aline MacMahon is so so good!!!
Michael is a good man!! He’s not the stepfather, he’s the father who stepped UP!!
I think I must have been a bored, sassy telephone operator in a past life.
The scene where Nancy is trying to get ahold of Hinchecliffe or Randall at the newspaper is done so so well. So heartbreaking.
The camera following Nancy into the bathroom, the silhouette of her reaching for the poison in the medicine cabinet… chilling.
“I’m going to join your mother.” 😳
Okay, WTF did they even take that made them die so instantly??
As a 37-year-old… I wanted to faint when I found out Nancy was 38.
They are going TF OFF!!!!
Miss Taylor is THE MVP of this movie
My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️½
Next Up: One Hour With You (1932)
Maybe 2019’s Bombshell comes close? Don’t know, haven’t seen it, and probably won’t, sorry!! I guess Succession also counts here, but seeing as that’s a show and not a film, we’re going to ignore that for now! Thanks!!