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Don't listen to the negative reviews

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

. . . "Warner Bros.," ONE FATAL HOUR provides a bare-bones warning to Today's U.S. Public regarding our current sorry State of Affairs. (This flick enjoys the twin benefits of not only being guided by Warner's unmatched Foretellers of the Future during its original production process, but later having eight minutes of "fluff" intended only for its contemporary theatrical audiences excised when edited for Our Modern Televisions and more tellingly retitled, as the initial TWO AGAINST THE WORLD and the even more sophomoric THE CASE OF MRS. PEMBROOK marquee titles were thankfully disassociated from this cautionary tale.) ONE FATAL HOUR deals frankly with the sexual perversion and War on Women now being waged at the highest levels of the USA's Media and Government. "Dr. Leavenworth" SHOULD be locked up in the Leavenworth federal penitentiary for life (or, better yet, his date with the Guillotine!) as a rabble-rousing Populist catering to a demonic base of nominally religious "core supporters" while enjoying a salacious private life as an alcoholic compulsive grabber of feminine genitalia, almost as bad as the mobster occupying our Once Hallowed Oval Office now. As "Edith" screams at him "WHY DID YOU KILL MY MOTHER?!" again and again for the climax of ONE FATAL HOUR, "Sherry" notes that such Public Enemies as Dr. Leavenworth and the future Game-Show-Host-in-Chief possess "squashy, putrid little souls" willing to televise their own mothers' funerals if they think it will add an additional buck to their mountains of ill-gotten wealth. "Jim," Edith, and "Gloria"--all victims of Leavenworth's Corrupt Corporate Class--each pick up guns while searching for a solution to this Capitalist Problem. Please watch ONE FATAL HOUR, and then support your local chapter of BANGS (Broke Americans Need Gun Stamps)!

This cheapo remake of the terrific Five Star Final suffers from terrible acting. Humphrey Bogart stars as the manager of a sleazoid radio station that is desperate to boost sagging ratings. The owner decides to have a series of morality plays written about a famous murder case from 20 years ago. So they hire the fake preacher (Harry Hayden) to track down the murderess, who was acquitted and has been living quietly under a fake name. The preacher arrive on the daughter's wedding day, but the ruthless radio station refuses to back off exposing the mother and ruining their lives.Bogart is always good. Hayden is good the the slimy preacher, and Henry O'Neill is good as the father. Everyone else is just awful. Helen McKeller wins no sympathy (crucial for the role), Linda Perry is a lousy actress, Beverly Roberts is OK but always looks old, Claire Dodd and Hobart Cavanagh have no parts, Carlyle Moore is a dud as the boy friend, Virginia Brissac is miscast as the society mother, Robert Middlemas overacts as the station owner.This one comes in under an hour but is a pale copy of the original which boasted dynamic performances by Edward G. Robinson, Aline MacMahon, Frances Starr, and Boris Karloff. But it's always worth watching Boagrt.

After a couple years of searching for the Humphrey Bogart film, "Two Against the World", it unexpectedly showed up as a TCM offering under the title "One Fatal Hour", a First National film from 1936. Bogey's character is Sherry Scott, the man who runs WUBC, a radio station whose program lineup is losing listeners. The owner Bertram Reynolds (Robert Middlemass), is a pathetic executive who calls the shots at the station, but hides behind his decisions by pawning them off on Scott.In an effort to boost the audience base and revenues, Reynolds has the idea of reviving a twenty year old murder case, and offering it as a fifteen chapter radio play. Scott enlists the aid of Dr. Martin Leavenworth (Harry Hayden) to write the play and present it on the air.The Pembroke Murder case involved a woman who was acquitted of murdering her husband, the circumstances of which are not made clear. However Gloria Pembroke has married, and is now living as Martha Carstairs (Helen MacKellar), married to a successful banker (Henry O'Neill), and their daughter Edith (Linda Perry) is about to be married (on the same day no less as the radio play is to reveal the identity of Gloria Pembroke). About to be faced with the devastating effects of this revelation, Martha and Jim Carstairs embark on a crusade to have the program stopped. Simultaneously, Edith's future in-laws respond by demanding that the marriage not take place.Without revealing the final outcome, the film takes a devastating turn to jolt the viewer. Edith Carstairs confronts the principals of the radio station, vigorously admonishing Scott and the sniveling Reynolds. While accepting his share of the blame for the outcome, Scott partially redeems himself by quitting his job, firing his secretary, and hauling her out of the office, recognizing her for the conscience he once had. With an entirely abrupt finish, the film leaves one as disoriented and unsettled as any movie that doesn't have a happy ending. With about a dozen films under his belt, Humphrey Bogart gets a chance to take center stage here with intriguing results. With no name supporting players, Bogey rises to the occasion by taking charge in the confines of the radio offices, and runs the show as if it was his own. In an interesting bit of characterization, he expresses his exasperation by crossing his hands over his bowed head, predating by a half dozen years a similar effect we'll see him do in "Casablanca". For Bogart fans, it's a genuine treat to catch an unexpected nuance like this.

What a difference five years makes. This remake of "Five Star Final" (1931) came after the repeal of Prohibition and the institution of the Production Code. Consequently, the seedy speakeasy becomes a glossy cocktail bar, and the generally amoral atmosphere of the original acquires a bent to moral condemnation in the remake.Still, "One Fatal Hour" (as it was titled on TCM) has a lot going for it. It's fast, nasty as Joe Breen would allow, and borrows much of "Five Star Final"'s sharp dialogue. (I think it also borrows the set for the hapless couple's apartment.) Bogart, in a rare pre-1940 lead role, gives a first-rate performance as the news director who struggles against his own principles even as he greenlights a muckraking radio series that will ruin the lives of a rehabilitated murderess and her blameless family. Harry Hayden, as a divinity student-turned-tabloid radio host, actually improves on Boris Karloff's performance in "Five Star Final"; he's charming, genial and deadly. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast is B-level, but watchable.