HI, NELLIE
US, 1934, 76 minutes, Black and white.
Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell, Ned Sparks, Robert Barrat, Douglass Dumbrille.
Directed by Mervyn Le Roy.
Hi Nellie is one of those fast-based newspaper comedy dramas of the 1930s. This time it is a star vehicle for Paul Muni, for director Mervyn Le Roy who had directed him in I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang.
He plays the managing editor of the paper who is very cautious about printing a story about the disappearance of a banker accused of embezzlement. He is demoted and has to write the Heartthrob column which seems to the readers to be written by woman. He is particularly successful and the newspaper circulation goes up. He has a rivalry with one of the other reporters and managers played by Glenda Farrell.
When he is asked to investigate a case about a breach of promise and a dominating father, he also finds a connection from his investigator, a deadpan Ned Sparks, which leads him to go to investigate, discover the truth about the embezzlement and murder and trap the criminals.
The editor, who demoted him, is so pleased that he makes him managing editor again – and they have to find a new Nellie, and he chooses the hard-boiled editor who took his place.
1. Expectations from the title? The revelation about the column, Heartthrob? The letters coming in, the answers, the expected female sympathetic perspective? The irony of Brad being so successful?
2. Warner Brothers production values, the 1930s, black and white photography, the city, the newspaper, the streets, the clubs, gangsters? Musical score?
3. Brad’s story, Paul Muni and his capacity for both drama and comedy, managing editor, his hesitation about the embezzlement story, the editor displeased, demoting him, his office and his becoming Nellie, his success, the piles of mail? The visit of the young woman, thinking that Gerry was Nellie, her making Brad take notes? His work with Shammy, the information in the address, the connection, his going to visit the florist, the undertaker, the threats? Setting up a trap? The warnings, his going to the club, intruding into the room, questioning the drugged accountant? The thugs, their bringing in the connection, the undertaker, the visit to the cemetery, the wrong grave, discovery of the body, Brad and the team, the photographer and the scoop? The fights, the police, the solution? Brad and his being promoted?
4. Gerry, tough, her work at the paper, the past relationship with Brad, her enjoying his becoming Nellie, listening to Rosa, ordering Brad to investigate the case, the information about the club, getting her suitor at the office to take her, their having to go to solve the case?
5. The members of the staff, the man on the phone, taking all the messages? The editor, hard, taking Brad’s place – and then being asked to be Nellie? The satisfaction of the editor?
6. The comic touch on the hard-boiled newspaper stories and investigations in the 1930s films?
