Tonight's Movie: Exclusive (1937) - A Kino Lorber Blu-ray Review

EXCLUSIVE (1937), a "newspaper movie" from Paramount Pictures, was released on Blu-ray last week by Kino Lorber.

Fred MacMurray plays Ralph Houston, a hardworking, honest newspaper reporter. Ralph's best friend is his editor, Tod Swain (Charlie Ruggles), and Ralph is in love with Tod's daughter Vina.

Vina, unfortunately, is not always a very nice young lady. She wants the finer things in life and, in essence, calls her father a financial loser early in the movie. Soon after, when she learns that Ralph lent her father money so she could go to college, she engages in unethical behavior to pay Ralph back.

Having tipped off gangster-turned-newspaper-publisher Charles Gillette (Lloyd Nolan) to a police raid in exchange for cash, Vina then goes to work for Gillette at his paper. She continues to turn a blind eye to ethical issues, including pretending to be a maid in order to steal documents out of the home of a politician (Ralph Morgan).

When Tod writes an article critical of his daughter, the family splits, with Vina and her mother (Fay Holden, later of the Andy Hardy series) moving out...

The story goes on from there, with Vina ultimately learning some hard lessons.

I was previously unfamiliar with this film, and while it's a watchable 85 minutes, it didn't quite live up to hopes. Still, as a huge fan of the newspaper movie subgenre, I was very glad to be able to see such a relatively little-known film.

The film's problems start with the screenplay, written by John C. Moffitt, Sidney Salkow, and Rian James based on Moffitt's play THE ROARING GIRL. The movie could have been an interesting examination of journalistic ethics and the impact of yellow journalism, but that's rather pushed to the side as the viewer simply gapes in amazement at the stupidity of the film's leading lady.

Vina is written as a hard-edged character who insults her father and makes bad choices, and that scripting is compounded by Farmer's frankly unappealing portrayal of a headstrong woman. It's entirely possible to write a character who's her "own woman," who also doesn't necessarily need a man, yet keep her likeable; a good example is Rosalind Russell in HIS GIRL FRIDAY (1940). Unfortunately that didn't happen in EXCLUSIVE.

Farmer's Vina is unkind and immoral; she's completely unbothered that she aided a crook in return for cold, hard cash. It's really quite surprising that Paramount was willing to allow Farmer, in her second year in movies, to play a character who surely must have been a turnoff for some audiences.

Farmer also does not always photograph attractively; she looks great in some scenes, such as dolled up for an evening out, but not so much in others. (A couple stills seen above illustrate her inconsistent appearance; click on any photo to enlarge for a closer look.) That might not be surprising today, when actors are often photographed in a more naturalistic way, but it's unexpected in a '30s film, when more care was taken to achieve Hollywood glamour.

Along with Farmer's changeable appearance, the movie itself also swings back and forth, never knowing if it's a drama or comedy. One minute a man is killing himself in someone's living room, and just a few minutes later there's crazy humor in the kitchen as a tipsy Tod (Ruggles) climbs into a refrigerator to see if the light goes off when the door is shut. In one scene Vina and Tod enact a comedic melodrama, but that's immediately followed by a gun battle with a shocking fatality.

Other than my feelings about Farmer's edgy performance, the rest of the cast is mostly fine. MacMurray is handsome and appealing; I suspect some may bristle at a couple of his bossier lines to Vina, but that said, her decisions were so poorly thought out that I applauded him. Overall he's likeable as a man who holds to journalistic ethics.

Ruggles and Holden are appealing, and Nolan always manages to imbue his characters with interest. The supporting cast includes Harlan Briggs, Willard Robertson, Edward H. Robins, Horace McMahon, and Irving Bacon.

This is said to be the first feature film for Cornel Wilde, playing a reporter, but although I scanned through several scenes with reporters after finishing the movie, I didn't spot him.

EXCLUSIVE was directed by Alexander Hall. It was filmed in black and white by William C. Mellor.

Kino Lorber's Blu-ray print looks and sounds terrific. What a great thing to have this previously unknown (at least to me!) film pop onto the radar looking so good.

Disc extras consist of a commentary track by Jason A. Ney, teamed with Frances Farmer expert Jeffrey Kauffman, plus a gallery of half a dozen trailers for other films available from Kino Lorber.

The movie may be somewhat iffy, but I suspect many will be as curious to see it as I was, and this disc is certainly the way to do it. Another interesting release from Kino Lorber.

Thanks to Kino Lorber for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray.

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