Scandal Sheet

Kay Francis stars with George Bancroft, Regis Toomey, and Clive Brook in "Scandal Sheet" from 1931.

Francis plays Edith Flint, the wife of aggressive news editor Mark Flint (Bancroft) who doesn't care whom he hurts by printing stories. The paper has a decidedly tabloid bend to it. Though he seems to adore his wife, the paper is his obsession.

As a result, Edith has been having an affair with a banker (Brook). He demands a commitment from her, and she asks for 24 hours to make a decision. During that time, Brook learns that he's about to become the subject of one of Bancroft's stories.

I'm afraid I did not have the same reaction as others. Kay of course was lovely - and those clothes! Knockouts. Bancroft did well as a tough man, but there weren't many levels to his performance.

I see here that people went on about the twist at the end. Maybe the very last scenes were a "twist," but what lead up to it wasn't, for me anyway.

I found this a stilted drama. And may I add, I don't understand what Kay Francis saw in either man.

I saw "The Scandal Sheet" (1952) starring Broderick Crawford before seeing this one. I don't like seeing remakes before seeing the original, but in this case there was no harm done. Though similar, they differed enough to make "Scandal Sheet" (1931) like watching a totally different movie.

"Scandal Sheet" (1931) is about a hardcore newspaperman. Mark Flint (George Bancroft) was the editor of a burgeoning New York rag and he was the reason for its recent success. He didn't let anything get in the way of him printing a news story--not personal relationships, personal feelings, or anything else. When it came to news he was as cold as ice. His heart and mind couldn't be budged.

His code and principles would be severely tested when his wife became the subject of a salacious news story. His wife, Edith Flint (Kay Francis), was photographed in the home of a banker named Noel Adams (Clive Brook). Noel was being tailed by reporters because his bank was the subject of a shady deal gone wrong. Edith just so happened to be careless enough to be spotted there.

When the publisher of the paper, Franklin (Gilbert Emery), brought the photo and the information about Edith to Mark's attention he had the first real test of his career. Print this salacious story or bury it.

I thought "Scandal" did a wonderful job even setting up the drama. It's always riveting when the drama involves the morals of a principled person: will they compromise or won't they? It helped that "Scandal" had a villain so-to-speak as well. No one likes a cheat and his wife was just that. How could he punish his wife, and keep his principles as a newspaperman, and keep his reputation clean? Or is that even possible? It was well worth watching to find out and the ending didn't disappoint.

Free on YouTube.

What begins as a conventional Unfaithful Wife Story evolves into something more fascinating, as we see a ruthless editor of a major city newspaper tread on too many toes and get some comeuppance. There is some wonderful set work at play in this "B" film, with a fashionable ultra-mod apartment turned out as Kay's Love Nest with a naughty banker who offers whiskey in bottles the size of a glass brick, as well as some zippy tracking shots in a newspaper office setting a fast pace of hustle and rush.

From the beginning, the viewer eavesdrops on cynical reporters attempting to bribe the little brother of a recent suicide, simultaneously offering the Mother cold cash for the dead boy's verse; editor George Bancroft sets the tone here as a heartless man who claims that no matter who the story damages--if it sells papers, it's news. His wife, Kay Francis, sits at home, draping various parts of her body with eye-catching fashion, and in one scene, other action front and center, there is some pre-code semi-nudity with mirrors catching the sort of undressing censored just three years later.

But it is the plot that, despite the soapy melodrama, rises above its origins, and provides no little suspense--with an odd, seemingly tacked-on ending, probably to please the money men. An additional incentive to early film fans is the rich casting of secondary players--Irving Bacon, Sid Saylor, Vince Barnett, Robert Parish, and even the man that become The Weenie King in The Palm Beach Story--Robert Dudley.

He never misses a chance on a story; he threatens to quit and take the story with him when the publisher asks him not to cover a prominent suicide, as the dead man's brother is an old friend of his. Right now, his reporters -- most prominently Regis Toomey -- are working on a yarn about how Clive Brook's bank has cheated depositors, and Brook is about to flee with the loot and Bancroft's loved wife, Kay Francis. Will Bancroft choose love over his newspaper, and what's the moral basis for his scandal-mongering, let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may style of journalism?

Bancroft was the right actor to play the unlikable editor, and the pre-code era was a time when you could tell a story like this, with everyone full of warts. Once the Code came into full force, of course, the newspaperman-as-hero persisted, but they wound up gelded, crusading men in search of truth and true love, with their hats battered, but not their souls. I prefer stories like this one, with people who are neither saints nor demons, just unscrupulous.

Newspaper editor George Bancroft (Flint) is a nasty piece of work. He will print anything that he deems newsworthy regardless of the effects on those concerned and their families. He is even approached by a kind-hearted old headmaster to hold back a story but Bancroft is having none of it. His wife, Kay Francis (Edith), is having an affair with banker Clive Brook (Adams) and debating whether or not to elope with him. Her decision will influence the course of this film.

The film is ok if a little dull but picks up at the end once Bancroft takes matters into his hands. However, the final scenes are ridiculous. There is some funny dialogue between Bancroft and Brook but I'm afraid we just can't sympathize with Bancroft and his monotone voice. He's not a role model to attach your emotions to and this is why the ending is particularly annoying.

I've read that Bancroft regarded himself as something pretty special in real life. In this film, his news hierarchy to present to the public has stories about newspapermen allocated to page 3. They are not headline material. Well, he makes sure he promotes himself to headline status. That's total dedication for you. What a big-head!