MISSING GIRLS
US, 1936, 65 minutes, Black-and-white.
Roger Pryor, Muriel Evans, Sidney Blackmer, Noel Maddison, Anne Doran, George Cooper, Vera Lewis.
Directed by Phil Rosen.
Missing Girls is a routine second feature of the 1930s. It has quite a lot of ingredients in its just over our hour running time. It is of interest to those who like these films of the 1930s and 40s, especially for the career of Phil Rosen, director of so many of them, working in films from 1915 to 1949.
The film begins with the theme of missing girls from home, a young woman with a repressive father, others disappointed in boyfriends, all coming to an office to help the girls get a job and accommodation. It is run by a competent young woman whose father is a senator – which leads into politics, the introduction of reform bills, the highlighting of quite a number of gangsters. The young woman is engaged to an ambitious reporter who persuades his editor that he should do a feature on these missing girls.
There are a great number of complications. The journalist is taken to court refusing to reveal his sources and is sentenced to a month in prison, with a focus of some of the running time on life in the prison, the journalist and his managing, the various contacts. There is also an assassination, some gunmen coming into the Senator’s house and shooting him and abducting his daughter and the maid (the girl at the opening of the film with the repressive father).
There are scenes of other gangsters, plans and plots, especially with Sidney Blackmer as a rather suave gangster, under suspicion but with an alibi.
When the journalist gets out of jail, he starts pursuing leads, with help from the FBI, and finally tracks down, during an alleged rambling walk, to find the criminals. The abducted girls come to the window and he sees them as well, smooth talks his way out of difficulties with the criminals, especially because he had pawned his coat for his walk and was able to get the manager and the pawn ticket to verify the truth.
Which, of course, leads to a siege and a lengthy, with an enormous number of bullets, shootout, some of the criminals escaping by the back door and being killed, the other surrendering, and the girls being released. But, there is a very interesting character in the tough Ma Burton, on the FBI wanted list, giving refuge to the criminals, getting the girls to do work for her and, planning to get some revenge on them, she is shot.
A lot of outlaws operating in the United States at this time – and this film reflecting the outlaws, the FBI, the work of politicians, the role of the media.
