Back Page (1933) User Reviews

A Hidden Gem?

[gavin6942 · 7/10 · 16 October 2017]

A young female reporter is fired from a big city newspaper, then decides to take over a troubled small town newspaper. She encounters difficulties with small town politics, getting advertisers to help keep the paper afloat, and issues with 1930s feminism in the resistance she receives from the town's residents to her attempts to run the newspaper.

This film is amazing and not very well known. Why not? Peggy Shannon is like a Rosalind Roussell on a budget. And Sterling Holloway is here, in all his glory... is this an openly gay character? If not, it is about the closest we probably see in this era.

A great story through and through, and well worth a peak if you can find a copy. It is available as a bonus feature of "Deluge", though frankly it is much better than the main film!

Surprisingly Strong Second Feature

[boblipton · 7/10 · 8 September 2003]

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.

Small town newspaper, run by big city woman, hits pay dirt.

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 2 June 2015]

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.

Pleasant B programmer

[Paularoc · 6/10 · 13 April 2015]

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.

Good Poverty Row feature!

[JohnHowardReid · 7/10 · 20 May 2015]

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.

A decent time-passer....nothing more.

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 25 August 2020]

"Back Page" is a very low-budget film from tiny Pyramid Productions. And, because it's a very cheap B-movie, the cast is mostly made up of unknowns and a few scenes where folks flubbed their lines were STILL included in the movie!

The story begins with a lady reporter becoming angry with the newspaper owner, as he killed her story and she resented it. Since she's tired of beig a little fish in a little pond, she takes her friend's suggestion to go to a tiny paper in order to run things herself. Soon Ms. Hampton is the managing editor and the tiny fly-by-night paper is growing very quickly. But there are some dishonest folks in town who are determined to take over the paper and stop its crusading ways.

At about 24:55 and 55:25, some lines were badly blown. But the director didn't bother re-shooting it...most likely because Pyramid couldn't afford it! This, combined with a mediocre story about a plucky lady reporter, consign this to the category of a time-passer and nothing more. Not terrible but not all that good either.

For Peggy Shannon only

[happytrigger-64-390517 · 5/10 · 1 February 2022]

I don't see any crime in this newspaper movie, rather a comedy with few light dramatic moments. It's a real cheap production, the settings are truly poor. Story of a beautiful young woman who gets in charge of a newspaper in a small country town. She discovers the rich industrials and their business. Nothing is exciting in this cheap story written by unknown screenwriters. Even more unknown is the director, it's his only movie. Fortunely, there is the charmingly sexy Peggy Shannon, who can be strongly determinated in front of tough businessmen. She's unknown to me, I'll have to see again a nice film noir, "House across the bay" in which she plays. She died the same year. What a pity.

Gorgeous Peggy Shannon

[kidboots · 8/10 · 19 June 2014]

Peggy Shannon's career may have been almost at an end by 1934 but her films with independents ("False Faces", "Deluge", "The Devil's Mate") gave her some of her more substantial roles. "The Back Page" is no exception being about a female editor who exposes the corruption that is rife in a small town. Films had come quite a way in the couple of years since "Exposure" which showed Lila Lee, owner of a struggling newspaper, as being almost a damsel in distress who caves in when macho journalist Walter Byron comes along.

Gorgeous Peggy Shannon plays ace reporter Jerry Hanson who is devastated when her first big scoop is ordered to be killed because one of the recipients is very influential in the city. In disgust she heads to the hometown of her reporter boyfriend (always reliable Russell Hopton) to take up the editor's job of the rag, tag and bobtail local "The Apex Advocate". Once she overcomes the old owner, Sam Webster's (Claude Gillingwater) objections that because she is a girl, she will be no good, Jerry finds a huge story that is being smothered, once again because of the undue influence of the town's leading citizen, Martin Blake (who else but Edwin Maxwell). He has put about a story that the town is sitting on oil and encouraged most of the town's people to put their life savings into the stock. Webster doesn't believe it but he is over a barrel; he owes Blake money so the paper can't afford to be impartial. Blake is not happy with the spruced up Advocate, all thanks to snappy Jerry who believes there is oil in the town but now Blake is putting about that he will do the right thing by the town by buying up their "worthless" stock so he doesn't see them out of pocket!!

This is just a grand little story and proves once again that poverty row didn't necessarily mean poverty in production or talent and could sometimes be more cutting edge in dealing with the woman's angle than some of the more prestigious studios. Aside from those stars mentioned there is the always quirky, always welcome Sterling Holloway with his "I'm Bill Giddings - that's Giddings with a zzzzz"!!!

Ah, for the days of real, honest journalism

[morrisonhimself · 9/10 · 16 November 2019]

As a former journalist myself, I almost always love these movies about small-town papers, or crusading big-town papers.

"Back Page" seems so unlikely today, with, in fact, reports earlier today, 15 November 2019, that the Gannett chain has been bought by a company with the word "investments" in its name.

In other words, it will probably be even less interested in news, but even more in profits, than was the Gannett operation.

"Back Page" is about journalists seeking to report news, as well as win and keep advertisers.

"Back Page" also benefits in having a perky, lovely, adorable Peggy Shannon as the forceful news reporter. She was an extremely capable and watchable actress, but never reached the acclaim she should have, and then died very young from a heart attack.

Claude Gillingwater is really the number two player, getting the chance to demonstrate his great talent by showing a wide range of emotions.

Harry Chandlee's story of small-town chicanery makes a good film, and I appreciate it more than most, perhaps, because I know of so many real-life parallels.

This is the kind of low-budget picture that shows the big-budget people how to make a good movie, with a strong story, talented cast, and high production values. I highly recommend "Back Page," and a good version is available at YouTube.