Popular reviews

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  Review by Jesse Snoddon ★★★

  "What do people do who are in trouble and haven't any money to buy liquor? There must be lots of 'em in the world."

  Joseph Randall (Edward G. Robinson) is the managing editor of a paper with falling circulation numbers. The paper's unscrupulous owner Bernard Hinchecliffe (Oscar Apfel) comes up with a scheme to boost sales involving running a "where are they now" hit piece on Nancy (Frances Starr), a woman who killed her boss after he went back on his promise to marry her twenty years prior. The timing of the story is particularly unfortunate, as the story breaks on the eve of the wedding of Nancy's daughter, who has no idea of this chapter of her mother's past.…

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  Review by williamfaeleith ★★★★ 1

  Excellent pre-code newspaper story about tawdry, sensationalist journalism being used to increase circulation no matter the effect on the people involved in the story. As relevant today as it was ninety years ago.
  Eddie G gives his usual classy performance and is well supported by Aline MacMahon as his lovelorn secretary with a conscience. And it's always good to see Boris Karloff in a non-Frankenstein role (and hear his plummy English accent). Some of the rest of the ensemble cast not so good and a little hammy but overall a well-written and hard-hitting piece.

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  Review by Remobo ★★★★ 1

  Quite a good bit of humor and fast-paced, sarcastic banter for a movie that deals in such incredibly dark subject matter. Not only from the bulldog-jowled Robinson, but also from my newest favorite “if you can’t say something nice, then come sit next to me” character that I wish was my real bestie, Aline MacMahon’s beleaguered secretary Miss Taylor. The laughs come all the way until the third reel, when the movie spins around and acts like it’s Joe Pesci and you just casually mentioned how funny it was. 

  Also stars a Pre-Frankenstein Karloff as a different kind of monster; a saggy-faced reporter named Isopod who can’t seem to keep his eyes or hands off of the ladies, but it’s…

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  Review by Gentry ★★★

  “I hate these plays that make heroines of…”
  -“Ladies with a past?”

  Pre-Monster Boris Karloff as…”Isopod,” a certifiable creep. The debut of Aline McMahon, holding down the secretary desk with her usual smart aleck quips. Circulation is down at the Gazette. Needs more stories about shop girls, the owner says, tasking managing editor Eddie G (introduced headless, washing his dirty hands) with dredging up a 20 year old case of a pregnant stenographer that shot her boss when he refused to marry her. Includes a double suicide by poison, and an extremely grim scene of a daughter dancing the Charlatan while her mother’s dead body lies on the bathroom floor behind her. Hearst hated it, and took it as a personal affront, so you know it’s pretty good.

  “I guess you can always get people interested in the crucifixion of a woman.”

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  Review by Allison M. 🌱 🔜 Tribeca ★★★

  Pretty run of the mill except for an exceptional performance from Edward G. Robinson.

  Watched on: TCM

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  Review by Todd Hill ★★★

  Newspaper movies were quite a popular, little subgenre in the 1930's, with most of the titles easily becoming morality tales. And this being a picture by Warner Bros., a studio with a reputation then for getting down and dirty, it jumps in headfirst. You can see where the story is going very early on -- unscrupulous journalists pursue a scandalous story with no thought of how it might affect those who show up in their pages, and tragedy results.

  As a crusty city editor, Edward G. Robinson anchors the movie, so we know we're in good hands. Boris Karloff stars as a creepy (naturally) reporter with the bizarre name of Isopod. Other actors are saddled with roles that are rather cartoonishly drawn, and there's a big finish with lots of strong speechifying.

  I especially enjoyed the two phones on the editor's desk -- very steampunk!

  Letterboxd Review No. 377

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  Review by RKO_Chester ★★★★

  4 stars for this Five Star Final well acted newspaper drama (without the joviality of so many other newspaper films).

  Think of newspaper films and many have that lighthearted jovial tone that the actors (Gable, Lee Tracy, Spencer Tracy, Cary Grant, et al.) inject into them.

  Edward G, instead brings a far more believably real & nuanced persona to the role. This film has a bite, but doesn't bite off more than it can make hay out of. Maybe a bit slow-going initially (for non 1930s film fans), but it's worth sticking with this one.

  Marian Marsh & Anthony Bushell are particularly good in one late scene. Boris Karloff does a decent job as a reporter (something I would never have imagined) & Aline MacMahon (in her film debut) was perfectly cast as Edward G's secretary. Plus, the producers idea to put them in the same office was a very helpful idea.

  7.75/10

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  Review by Robert Hayes ★★★★★ 2

  "Human interest" sells. And journalism has changed very little. If anything, it's worse.

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  Review by Carlos Valladares

  Incredibly cynical and bleak newspaper movie—outdoing Citizen Kane and His Girl Friday in sheer brutality. And it would come from Warner Brothers Studio.

  Edward G. Robinson is a hard-nosed newspaper editor who reluctantly complies to his publishers' demand for more "human-interest" (i.e., scuzzy and gossipy) stories. Robinson hires a young Boris Karloff to dig up an old story on a woman, Nancy Voorhees, who was infamous in her impoverished youth for shooting her boss, after he impregnated her and refused to acknowledge the baby. She is now happily married, upper-middle-class, with the daughter from that pregnancy about to be married; the girl and the boy don't suspect a thing. Robinson's newspaper escalate their efforts to report this long-buried story, resulting…

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  Review by Donkey Kong Kill Screen ★★★½ 1

  Ain't no party like a Pre-Code party.

  Edward G. Robinson is fantastic in FIVE STAR FINAL, a film that should be far more well known today and might have been if it didn't lose out on Best Picture in 1931. It's also a film that makes you lament the fact that we don't have six thousand editions of the newspaper every day.

  That was a great time to be alive (editor's note: Donkey Kong Kill Screen went to journalism school)!

  Looking for a sextuplet feature? Put this one with HIS GIRL FRIDAY, ACE IN THE HOLE, SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, SCANDAL SHEET or PARK ROW. There's a weekend full of arsenic for you.

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  Review by teamgal ★★★½ 1

  Effective entry in the string of anti-tabloid melodramas produced by American studios during the 1930s. As is usually the case in films starring Edward G. Robinson, he is the main attraction, and watching this virile powder-keg elocute is riveting -- so much dialogue, so rapidly delivered, and all with perfect diction.

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  Review by seb ★★★★

  "God gives us heartache and the devil gives us whiskey"

  One of the more grotesque and grim depictions of media cynism and sensationalism with Edward G. Robinson shining throughout. Boris Karloff also plays one of his more unique roles and excells at it tremendously. The entire film is enthralling throughout and while the ending might be a bit preachy it is still very impactful nonetheless . Also far better than the 1936 remake (seriously, what was the point of making a remake even?)