A tough, ambitious newspaperman starts a new tabloid in 1919 New York, with a crooked big-time gambler as a partner.A tough, ambitious newspaperman starts a new tabloid in 1919 New York, with a crooked big-time gambler as a partner.A tough, ambitious newspaperman starts a new tabloid in 1919 New York, with a crooked big-time gambler as a partner.
Joe Downing
- Jerry - Henchman
- (as Joseph Downing)
Charles Cane
- Insp. Brody
- (scenes deleted)
Connie Russell
- Singer
- (scenes deleted)
William 'Billy' Benedict
- Copyboy Wanting Paper
- (uncredited)
Gertrude Bennett
- Newspaper Woman
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe opening scene shows a newspaper headline reading "Whole City Out to Welcome A.E.F." The AEF was The American Expeditionary Forces, the name given to the American military forces sent to fight alongside French and British troops in Europe.
- GoofsIn Bruce's new newspaper office, circa 1919, Croney is wearing a dress with a full zipper up the back. That style would not come into use until twenty years later, as it was considered "vulgar" for a woman to wear a dress that could come off so easily.
- Quotes
Merrill Lambert: Anything can be bought for dough!
- ConnectionsFeatured in Marsha Hunt's Sweet Adversity (2015)
Featured review
Brisk newspaper potboiler shows roughhouse origins of The fourth Estate
This fleet and raffish newspaper melodrama was released the same year as Citizen Kane and in its far more modest way is almost as much fun. Like Kane (and dozens of 30s potboilers before it, most churned out by ink-stained wretches come west for a piece of the Hollywood action), it's a cautionary reminder of the roughhouse beginnings of the Fourth Estate.
Reporter Edward G. Robinson, overseas winning The Great War, started a peppy servicemen's paper The Doughboy. When he returns to New York, he wants to run the same sort of rag a tabloid for the straphangers. `The war's done things to people,' he tells his old-school editor. `We've made life cheap. and that makes emotions cheap...There's no privacy left...Keyholes are to look through.'
But getting start-up money proves hard, and he ends up striking a bargain with big-time gangster Edward Arnold, who'll stay the silent partner. But when Robinson's let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may style threatens Arnold's interests, the partners become adversaries. `What people want to put in papers is advertising,' Robinson lectures Arnold. `What they want to keep out is news.' After Arnold tries to strong-arm his way into control of the paper, Robinson vows to put him out of business.
LeRoy was an old hand at filming quick-and-dirty dramas that rested, however lightly, on timely social issues. So he predictably does as well (if not a mite better) as he did a decade earlier with Robinson in Five Star Final. Other players include Laraine Day, Marsha Hunt and William T. Orr, but Robinson and Arnold dominate, as they should. The story takes a clumsy and fanciful turn or two near the end (with Robinson suddenly delivering a reverent paean to the press at odds with everything he stood for), though even these twists echo big stories of the roaring 20s. The closing sentiment of Unholy Partners, however, is a dubious one: That the `tabloid age is over.' A pass through the supermarket checkout aisle or a few clicks of the television remote show how laughable that prediction was.
Reporter Edward G. Robinson, overseas winning The Great War, started a peppy servicemen's paper The Doughboy. When he returns to New York, he wants to run the same sort of rag a tabloid for the straphangers. `The war's done things to people,' he tells his old-school editor. `We've made life cheap. and that makes emotions cheap...There's no privacy left...Keyholes are to look through.'
But getting start-up money proves hard, and he ends up striking a bargain with big-time gangster Edward Arnold, who'll stay the silent partner. But when Robinson's let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may style threatens Arnold's interests, the partners become adversaries. `What people want to put in papers is advertising,' Robinson lectures Arnold. `What they want to keep out is news.' After Arnold tries to strong-arm his way into control of the paper, Robinson vows to put him out of business.
LeRoy was an old hand at filming quick-and-dirty dramas that rested, however lightly, on timely social issues. So he predictably does as well (if not a mite better) as he did a decade earlier with Robinson in Five Star Final. Other players include Laraine Day, Marsha Hunt and William T. Orr, but Robinson and Arnold dominate, as they should. The story takes a clumsy and fanciful turn or two near the end (with Robinson suddenly delivering a reverent paean to the press at odds with everything he stood for), though even these twists echo big stories of the roaring 20s. The closing sentiment of Unholy Partners, however, is a dubious one: That the `tabloid age is over.' A pass through the supermarket checkout aisle or a few clicks of the television remote show how laughable that prediction was.
helpful•90
- bmacv
- Jul 15, 2003
Details
- Runtime1 hour 34 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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