MAN FROM HEADQUARTERS

US, 1942, 64 minutes, Black-and-white.
Frank Albertson, Joan Woodbury, Dick Elliott, Arthur O' Connell.
Directed by Jean Yarbrough.

An ever so slight comedy thriller, supporting feature from the early 1940s.

Frank Albertson is a newspaper reporter, more than a touch of the rebellious against the editor, who receives an official commendation from the city because of his contribution in exposing a gang. When he gets caught up with some of the gang members who threaten him, the appeals to the editor who decides to teach him a lesson with a practical joke and does not help him.

He is knocked out, goes on a bus to another city, encounters an attractive young woman who has no money and pays for her food. She depends on him and rather falls for him, she is played by Joan Woodbury.

The rest of the film as a whole lot of tangles, police, criminals, thugs, the newspaper reporter being abducted, the dangers for the girl, everything working out well at the end and the two of them being praised for exposing the criminals!

For film buffs, one of the thugs in the car is Arthur O’ Connell, in later decades a genial and attractive old character actor.