Reporter Torchy Blane is getting all the scoops, and Captain McTavish is mad. He thinks Torchy's fiancé, Lieutenant McBride, is giving her inside police information. The rival newspaper's editor "wants to know if we're running the police department for the taxpayers or for Torchy Blane." McBride ought to keep her in line!
Glenda Farrell as Torchy is funnier than ever in this fast-moving farce with a bit of mystery tossed in. Torchy plays innocent when asked where she's getting her leads ("Oh, I don't know, those things just seem to come to me. I told you I was psychic") but has soon tracked a missing businessman to a hotel room where someone has been stabbed. Inside info or no, Torchy is consistently a step quicker than the cops.
Barton McLane is a good sport as the generally bewildered Lieutenant McBride; the character is solid enough but essentially a straight man for Torchy and for police chauffeur Gahagan.
Tom Kennedy is back as poetry-loving cop Gahagan and this time around he's keeping a diary—for "postererity," he says. He lets Torchy in on the secret diary; she asks if he has a good hiding place for it and encourages him to keep track of every little thing his boss McBride does
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The plot has a few thin spots. Could you really trace a person that easily from a single smudge of lipstick on a handkerchief? The ending is rather abrupt as well, wrapping things up in an awful hurry. However, such issues hardly matter since plot here is always secondary to the goofy character interplay. The mystery, such as it is, involves a disappearance and murder but is little more than a backdrop for the comic story of Torchy and her sources.
Not much suspense but lots of fun
. Farrell especially—hilarious and cute—appears to be having a ball.
