Wednesday, December 6, 2023

Smart Blonde (1937)

The first in the Torchy Blane series of films starring the perky young reporter.

Torchy (Glenda Farrell) is after a scoop as usual, and indeed gets one when she witnesses the shooting of an investor who has arrived from Boston to buy a popular night club from Mularky (Addison Richards). Mularky wanted out of the seedy business so he could do a bit of social climbing with Marcia (Charlotte Wynters). Mularky's old right hand man Chuck (Max Wagner) is a suspect because he will lose his job though he later becomes a victim too...

Torchy unravels a complicated plot involving plenty of swindling with the help of her beau (and detective) McBride (Baron MacLane). While in later films Torchy could often be more of a hinderance than a help to the police, in this film she really is on the case and this is a fine crime B-movie.