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As Good As It Gets

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

A great performance by Peggy Shannon elevates this newspaper drama to make it a hidden gem amongst the thousands of low budget films to come out of Hollywood's B studios in the golden age of movie making. It's the story of an aging newspaper owner (the lovable Claude Gillingwater) who fears that a local big wig is out to take over his paper. In a last ditch effort to save his paper from going under the thumb of somebody who would surely ruin it, he brings in a New York City reporter named Jerry to be its new editor, unaware that Jerry is actually a woman! She's pretty tough, too, and takes on the ruthless Edwin Maxwell without fear, winning the respect of Gillingwater and his staff as well as the townspeople when she exposes a fraud concerning a local oil well which many people invested their life savings in.Sterling Holloway gives a fine comic performance as a rather effeminate and delightfully eccentric co-worker at the newspaper, and Russell Hopton is fine as Shannon's love interest who has more than a passing interest in what happens concerning the actions of the ruthless Maxwell. Ottola Nesmith, as the newspaper's secretary, will steal your heart as she overhears what is going on concerning the oil well and reacts to it. There's also a fascinating scene with the townsfolk discussing the oil well's sudden success. It is so obvious that these were non-actors, just real people pulled off the street, because the lack of annunciation on the old lady's disinterest in gaining money is so honest and refreshing. These are things you don't see in movies from the main studios that make the poverty row filmmakers sometimes a lot more interesting and realistic.

This is the only credit for a gent named Anton Lorenze. I suspect that name is a pseudonym as the direction is far too able to be the work of someone who walks in off the street. No-one, not even a producer on Poverty Row is going to entrust even a ten thousand dollar production to someone with absolutely no credits at all – unless of course Lorenze is himself an executive of the movie company and/or he has stage credits. I also notice that one reviewer picked fault with Peggy Shannon's performance, but I thought she was wonderful and carried the role off perfectly. The person I didn't like was Sterling Holloway. I'm not a fan of Sterling's, I admit, but in this movie he seemed to me to be particularly out of place. Claude Gillingwater, as usual, was a delight in a made-to-order role, while Edwin Maxwell did his customary convincing stint as the villain. Available on a very good Alpha DVD.

Peggy Shannon did a nice job as a reporter, Jerry Hampton, who was fired from a big city newspaper and becomes the editor of a small town paper. Shannon has a certain charm and sparkle that enhance the movie; her reporter character is not rough edged or somewhat brassy like a Torchy Blane but neither is she silly or vapid. She also has a certain comedic touch - I thought the extended scene between Sterling Halloway and her was funny and well done by both of them. The movie starts and finishes with showing the impact of power and influence on what stories newspapers will print. I can't decide if the ploy Jerry uses at the end of the movie to ensure a happy ending for the good guys was a case of quite rightly and nicely hoisting the nasty guys on their own petards or unethical. Worth a watch.

A very good second feature about a young woman, fired from her big-city newspaper job, who takes over a small town paper and makes a go of it. If you are used to seeing precode movies from big studios with large budgets, you may have issues with the barebone values of this production, but it is worth a look, if only to see if you will enjoy this sort of socially responsible movie.The strong script includes some real insight into the problems of getting advertisers, small town politics and 1930s feminism. Unhappily, Peggy Shannon, in the lead role, is not up to the part and Sterling Holloway has an obnoxious comedy part, but the rest of the cast is excellent and the issues raised will not be totally alien to the modern viewer.