Watch You Can't Escape Forever For Free

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Just what I expected

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

George Brent (newsman), Brenda Marshall (reporter), Gene Lockhart (Lonesome Club manager), Roscoe Karns (reporter), Paul Harvey (publisher), Eduardo Ciannelli (Greer), Frank Richards (Scotty), Fred Kelsey (radio fan), Erville Alderson (Crowder), George Meeker (Cummings), Edith Barrett (Lucille), Jack Carr (No-Neck), Joseph Crehan (warden), Charles Halton (Gates), Dick Elliott (Meeker), Olin Howland (caretaker), Harry Hayden (Judge Hardacre), Joe Downing (Varney), Tom Dugan (trusty), Don DeFore (reporter), John Dilson.Director: JO GRAHAM. Screenplay: Fred Niblo, Jr., Hector Chevigny. Story: Roy Chanslor. Photography: Tony Gaudio, James Van Trees. Film editor: David Weisbart. Produced for Warner Bros by famous New York newsman Mark Hellinger, this film used elements from Hi, Nellie!, Final Edition, The Girl on the Front Page and other Roy Chanslor yarns. U.S. release: 10 October 1942. Australian release: 22 February 1945. 77 minutes. COMMENT: A brisk re-make of "Front Page Woman" (1935), this fast, funny and most delightfully and unexpectedly facetious newspaper yarn has all the makings of a cult classic. Directed by former Michael Curtiz assistant, Jo Graham, in a furiously stylish Curtiz style, the movie features a host of our favorite character players at their most ingratiating. Despite hot competition from Ciannelli, Lockhart and Hayden, it's Frank Richards, however, who walks away – or rather dances off – with the picture. His zest in swinging Lonesome Marshall around the club is the gem of gems!

Marshall's character SHOULD have been fired and yet she was angry--made her very easy to hate turns silly=propaganda While on the surface this film can look a lot like "His Girl Friday", soon it becomes very apparent it is not. It's a shame, because George Brent was capable of doing better pictures than this one. And, you could do a lot better with your time.The film starts off okay. An annoying reporter (Brenda Marshall) is sent to cover an execution for the newspaper. But, she passes out and misses it--and doesn't realize that the man was given a last second pardon. Not willing to admit the truth, she phones in the story to her editor (and boyfriend), Brent, and reports that the killing went off as scheduled! As a result, he demotes her to do a society column. Now here is where the film started to annoy me. She SHOULD have felt lucky not to get fired--but she is nasty and balks with her demotion. I grew to dislike her because of this--and it was only about 5 minutes into the movie. Later, Brent himself is demoted to this same thankless job--and he spends the rest of the film trying to break a huge story to earn his way back.While this COULD have worked, the film had three major problems. I already mentioned how unlikable Marshall's character was. In addition, the dialog tried to be smart and zippy like "His Girl Friday"--but it just wasn't that good and showed it. But most importantly, the end just made me cringe. Adding this propaganda angle hurt the film because it seemed VERY gratuitous and unnecessary. Overall, a pretty limp little film--one you will no doubt also think is a bit limp.

"You Can't Escape Forever" is a great title for a film, although I'm not convinced it fits this story. This movie is really crisply done. All the scenes clip along and never linger too long. The reading of the lines by the actors are so rapid fire that Frank Fox the dialogue director must have worked overtime. The opening execution scene made me chuckle. There always seems to be a thunderstorm happening when someone is about to be strapped to the electric chair. In this case they did use the atmosphere as part of the story and not simply a clichéd mood device. I didn't find "Forever" a waste of time, but there was nothing about it that will linger in my movie memory banks for an extended period of time.

The entire film uses that hectic non-stop dialogue style that was far more frequent in the black and white days. It makes it kind of difficult to feel involved, more like you are watching a comedy show than a film. And the means with which the main story is introduced, in the same blase fashion, doesn't lend it any gravity. In the end you feel you have watched a long episode of an old sit-com.