NIGHT ALARM
US, 1934, 64 minutes, Black and white.
Bruce Cabot, Judith Allen, H. B. Warner, Sam Hardy, Betty Blythe.
Directed by Spencer Bennett.
Night Alarm is a supporting feature from the mid-1930s. It is about an eager newspaper reporter who is stuck in the gardening section, not knowing anything about gardens and plants. But, he chases fire engines, looking for stories. His played by Bruce Cabot, the year after he rescued a Fay Wray from King Kong. Also in the cast is H.B.Warner has a rather ruthless business tycoon with political influence – seven years after he played Jesus in DeMille’s? King of Kings.
The film is in the vein of so many popular films of the time, newspaper reporters, the press room, quick repartee, making reputations. It is also interesting in its look at an arsonist, his targets, the insurance issues after the fires.
In fact, the fire sequences are rather spectacular for the time – 40 years before Towering Inferno.
When a young woman complains about his garden columns, Cabot whose name in the film is, interestingly, Hal Ashby, is happy that she takes his place leaving him free to go after the fires, talk with a police chief, get information about city ordinances not being followed through with great danger for fires spreading.
The Mayor complaints to the editor, pressurised by the tycoon. Nevertheless, the editor continues the investigation, with Hal Ashby caught between his reporting and his falling in love with the woman who complained and is now his successor at the gardening column. She is actually the daughter of the tycoon and has not revealed this.
The two have some dates, going to a restaurant where a comedian performs a comic song, he is eager for his article the next day – which, when she reads it, she denounces him.
An eccentric has come with a report for Ashby but he has not read it, something about the mystical nature of fire. When he does eventually go to the man’s house, he discovers that he is the arsonist, that the tycoon’s factory where a party is going on is the next target. He hurries there and has a dramatic moment rescuing the daughter. The tycoon is ready to accept the young man as a manager of his Paper Company – but the screenplay doesn’t follow through with any discussion about the law, the ordinances, his insurance and the criminal implications.
