Here's Flash Casey

You may need a score card to keep up with the plot, but it's fast-moving enough to slide by. Flash is trying to break into newspapers with his talent for photography. But that involves him with a number of tricky characters wanting to use his photos for their own benefit.

I'm glad that lame first scene in a college frat house is not indicative of the flick as a whole. Actually, the cheapo's pretty well acted, though actor Linden could use more fire, while the director is more concerned with pacing than with atmosphere. And how about Boots Malone. Frankly, I'd like a pair of those Boots, though one would be enough. The actress is actually an engagingly sweet persona, a long way from tough strapped leather. Too bad she left the business early on. This is a movie period when press-room flicks like The Front Page (1931) were popular. Looks like this sub-60 minute programmer from budget outfit Grand National was intended to ride the wave, which it does in fairly entertaining if obscure fashion.

Eric Linden finds it harder to be a newspaper photographer than he imagined. Along the way, he falls in love with society editor Boots Mallory, gets fired, goes to work for the firm's photomagazne and has the crooks running the camera shop where he gets his pictures developed "augment" them into blackmail pictures.

It's certainly a high-speed movie for Grand National, but the ambitious Gower Gulch studio has its own set of problems. Miss Mallory may have been a great model, but her line readings are week. The backstabbing nature of the newspaper industry is well highlighted, as is the snobbery of the era. Still, despite a good script, the direction of Lynn Shores is rarely more than adequate, and the editing by Charles Henkel, Jr. doesn't do anything to help the film's pacing.

All these twenty-five and thirty year old actors are claiming to be college students, about to graduate. Flash has been putting himself through school by taking photographs, and now he wants a job in the real world. He hits up the local papers, but can only get a job by blackmailing the city editor with a photo of the owner's daughter in a compromising position. Hi-jinx follow,and he gets fired again. He'll have to photograph something big, like something that happens right in front of him just when he needs it. The picture and sound quality are pretty rough, but the story is pretty solid. Eric Linden was only in hollywood 10 years, but moved to stage after that. Co-star Patricia Mallory also only had ten years in hollywood, and sadly, her life was cut short due to cancer. Produced by the M&A Company, which seems to stand for Max and Arthur Alexander, for Grand National Pictures. Directed by Lynn Shores.. not a lot of info on him out there. didn't direct very long. Wonder if he's related to Del Lynn Shores, of Sordid Lives. maybe grandfather? who knows. another interesting tidbit... in the film, we see quick "footage" mockup of the Hindenburg disaster, (it's a film about photography, after all !) which had just happened in 1937. It's pretty good. aint no shakespeare.

Grand National was a so-called 'Poverty Row Studio'. In other words, unlike the major studios, a Poverty Row outfit had minuscule payrolls and budgets and barely scraped by in many cases by making very cheap and quickly made films. Some of these studios were pretty successful, such as Monogram, but others, like Grand National, came and went rather quickly. I've seen dozens and dozens of Grand National films and would say that their output looked pretty good but was even sub-par for one of these tiny studios. So, when I was far less than impressed by "Here's Flash Casey", it was hardly much of a surprise!

The film begins with Flash in college working hard to make it through the school and get his degree--all by pluck and determination. However, when he graduates, he has a hard time getting work and has to content himself with a skinflint boss. What he didn't realize is that additionally many of his pictures ended up getting stolen by some unscrupulous jerks who developed his film-- folks who also were operating a blackmail racket! Can Flash sort all this out and save the day? What do you think?!

The film is not terrible. It's cheap, fast-paced and mildly interesting but nothing more.