Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

mmallon4 Five Star Final is 85 years old yet nothing has changed in that the public still has an appetite to read about filth in newspapers. The themes here would be looked at in many newspaper comedies throughout the 1930's, however this is no screwball comedy - it's deadly serious. I guess we can't say "back in my day journalists had ethics". The real life inspiration for Five Star Final came from a New York tabloid called New York Evening Graphic. At the time of the film release the Evening Graphic was losing circulation because its new editor was attempting to make it a more respectable paper, just like the character of Randall played by Edward G. Robinson the editor of the fictional tabloid newspaper The Gazette.Randall is an editor who is not without ethics. Despite the objections of the paper's management, "Randall won't print pictures of girls in underwear in the pictures section" and prints cables from The League of Nations. The pressure is on him to stop printing "actual news" and more sensationalist stories and gossip. When Randall gives in we see the full sleaze of Edward G. Robinson; after all nobody could do sleaze better than him.The stealer of the show however is Boris Karloff as Isopod. This isn't a horror movie but his performance feel like one straight from a horror picture with is distinctive, eerie voice. Isopod is a disgraced priest of whom Randall disguises as a practicing priest to go undercover and do the paper's dirty work; a creep who is full of crap and as Randall puts it "You're the most blasphemous looking thing I've ever seen". The name Isopod in Greek means 'even footed' but more commonly is the name an unpleasant looking order of crustacean parasites so I guess it works.The Gazette has a number of shady practices; they bully retailers and vandalise their stalls for not putting their papers on top. Likewise they employee a pretty girl played by Ona Munson to do dirty work for the paper although the main reason they're choosing her for the job is that she's not flat chested, as evident by the shot in which Aline MacMahon is clearly looking at her rack (even Isopod enjoys checking her out).In order the increase the circulation of The Gazette, Randall unearths a 20 year old murder case for the sake of a sensational story later titled, "Famous Killer's Girl to Wed Society Man". Today with this internet thing we've got going on it would be highly unlikely someone could hide the fact they were once tried for murder while Isopod could just get a photograph of the murder's daughter on Facebook. But the fact remains the same: sensationalist news stories can affect the lives of innocent associates.The film has a truly superb cast with everyone having their moment in the sun and this being a film set in the world of journalism, the dialogue flows at a rapid fire rate; a form of acting which is truly a thing of the past. Marian Marsh's breakdown at the end is hair raising melodramatic brilliance, even if her husband just happens to walk in as she pulls out a gun in a delightfully improbable turn of events.The production values are excellent helmed under the great director Mervyn Le Roy (such an impressive back catalogue). The use of sound in the opening credits with boys shouting "extra!" and the noise of the printing press sets the atmosphere while it's evident the studio strived for this production to have authentic sets. Many shots in Five Star Final have an impressive level of depth such as that of George E. Stone with his feet up in foreground as he sits back while on the phone.Five Star Final contains innovative use of split screen as Mrs Voorhes (Frances Starr) in the middle of the frame is trapped between paper employees who go about their business as usual and try to ignore her but also shows the paper as voyeuristic spies. Yes, the filmmakers sure love their symbolism here. Throughout the film Randall is constantly washing his hands ("50 times a day" apparently) while the paper employees going to the bar and drink in order to deal with their conscience. Likewise Randall's closeted love interest Miss Taylor played by Aline MacMahon has feelings towards him but objects to his job and the paper; she is symbolic of his conscious. To top it all off, the film ends with an image of the paper lying in the gutter like the filthy rag it is; a final powerful image to stick in your mind.

secondtake Five Star Final (1931)There is one main reason to watch this—Edward G. Robinson. I almost didn't continue after the first fifteen minutes because this newspaper office drama was so filled with convenient stereotypes and one-liners it was drab.Then came the obsessive-compulsive reporter played by Robinson, Mr. Randall. He's intense, and he's not in the movie nearly enough. There is a wonderful quirky part by Boris Karloff (a few months before doing Frankenstein's monster). And a slew of decent smaller parts keep it interesting like Aline MacMahon, playing a stenographer (and in her first film role) and Marian Marsh who plays the daughter with increasing intensity right up to the highly volatile last scene.This is the heyday of the unsung Mervyn LeRoy, a director with at least two unsurpassed movies ("Three on a Match" and "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang"), not including his work on "Wizard of Oz." He has a dozen other really good films to his name, and this one survives despite some filler and a slightly functional approach to the acting and staging. This was the day when directors (and their crews) were pressed to shoot movies in a couple weeks or so, and it shows.I only wish you could see the second half of this movie alone. It gets more dramatic, and more intense (and the one painfully wooden actress dies), and it really drives home the point against yellow, abusive journalism. The first half is stale enough to turn off a lot of viewers, I'm sure, and it brings down my overall impression of the totality. Luckily, if you make it to the end, you nearly forget the forgettable beginning and will leave with a good taste in your mouth.And all the drinking in the movie? "God gives us heartache, and the devil gives us whiskey," Randall says as he downs a shot. He's seems to be standing at an ordinary bar, not an illegal speakeasy. But the year is 1931, just before the end of Prohibition. (The premiere was September 1931.) Drink is a frank and normal reality in much of the movie as people swig from bottles in their desk and meet at the bar after work, and it's an eye-opener to counteract the more extreme portrayals of alcohol in the movies. And of course, it's normal for the viewer in the theater at the time as well, part of the general feeling that the time had come to change the laws (which Roosevelt did in early 1933).So, see this if you like pre-Code films, but stick it out through the more mundane parts. It's worth it.

Michael Morrison Contra Jesse Jackson, there are too many Christians in New York – but apparently not in the newspaper business.One can take this movie as a parable, only slightly exaggerated perhaps, of the entire "news" media.Although some of the dialogue is somewhat corny, by today's standards, anyway, much of the rest is chilling, or infuriating, or heart-breaking, by turns.Aline MacMahon, whose character told the messenger boy not to change his name, and followed with the line in the first paragraph, has one of her best roles, and she is terrific.Edward G. Robinson, as the managing editor, tells her she is the visible conscience, and he brings powerful emotion to his role.Marian Marsh has the movie-stealing scene, one of power and heartbreak and possibly her best performance in her three-decades-long career. You'll find her character justified even while you're urging her not to do what she threatens.There is a generally superb cast, including Boris Karloff, whose playing is – as usual – often over the top, but in his last scene, without words, he makes one wonderful move that deserves applause.Taken to task for a story that has given tabloid-sized "news" papers their tawdry reputation, and, in fact, made the very word "tabloid" a synonym for that kind of garbage, the publisher tries to say that papers transcend the individual.In other words, phooey on individuals; we want to boost circulation no matter who, or what, gets hurt.In truth, such publications, and, in fact, all the so-called mainstream "news" media have been all too willing to stomp on individuals and, in fact, on the entire country, in order to have a scoop, a ratings coup, or a jump in circulation.Granted, most wouldn't have stooped to quite the low of the paper in this story, but the ultimate end is not much different.It's been not quite 80 years since "Five Star Final," and daily papers are dying like the proverbial flies, all over the country – and many people are just nodding and saying "about time." Remember the period and the context, and pay close attention to "Five Star Final." It has something to say, and says it extremely well.

blanche-2 The exploitativeness of tabloids is always a good subject, even back in 1931. "Five Star Final" is about a ruthless editor (Edward G. Robinson) who hounds a woman involved in a 20-year-old murder with tragic results. The film sports a good cast, including Boris Karloff, Mae Marsh, Ona Munson, Aline McMahon, and H.B. Warner.Robinson, as the editor, decides to do a series on an old murder and track down one of the people involved, Nancy Vorhees. She is now married with a daughter about to get married. The film looks at the effect it has on the lives of everyone in the family.I am not as enthusiastic about this film as some of the posters here, though I imagine it was very hard-hitting for 1931. The acting is very melodramatic, and while I appreciated the devastating effects of the story, I really thought a bad situation was made much worse by the behavior of the girl's parents at the end of the film. It wasn't until the mid-thirties that the class system in America began to disintegrate, so it's still quite evident here, with the way the young woman's future in-laws react to the scandal and Robinson's analysis of black readers.At the time the film was made, any publicity was looked down upon - today it's considered a great thing, though I don't suppose involvement in a murder would be. You might get a book deal out of it, though, and a TV movie. Nancy Voorhees today could have given the paper an exclusive interview and become a sympathetic character. But it was such a disgrace, and people seemed to have no understanding or compassion.It's hard to judge the performances because the acting style and the dialogue are so different from even a few years later. Of all of them, Aline McMahon, as the cynical secretary, comes off the best.Definitely worth seeing.