I'm a great fan of these old "serials for kids"--the Dick Tracy ones with Ralph Byrd are my favorites for action and plots, also Secret Agent X-9 starring Scott Kolk and beautiful Jean Rogers. And there I go, talking about beauty. Jean Rogers really was beautiful and even more beautiful in "X-9" than she had been in the Flash Gordon and Ace Drummond serials. And all of the afore-mentioned were great serials with engaging stories and action.
Frankly I think "Brenda Star, Reporter" is a silly lot of nonsense with a far below average story, a silly script filled with padding, silly "comic relief" characters talking nonsense that's best fast-forwarded over. But I can watch this silly thing over and over just for three of the most beautiful faces I've ever seen on the flickering screen: Joan Woodbury is a treat for the eyes every minute that she's in view, and she has a great personality too--vivacious and enthusiastic. And her adversary at the Police Department is played by who must have been the handsomest man God ever made--Kane Richmond. Audiences of the 1930s and 1940s who agreed that Robert Taylor had facial perfection probably never noticed Kane Richmond since he only played in "action movies for kids." His face was beautiful from any angle--a stupendous profile--and his beauty wasn't tawdry, leering and sneeringly sexual. It was "God-like."
Another beautiful face in this film is that of Jack Ingram, who played in even more serials than Richmond and was usually a scowling cowboy and nearly always a crook, as he is in this one. But "in this one" he looks downright presentable in his three-piece suit and fedora and his face, too, has a kind of perfection that shows up in close-ups.
Those three faces make this serial a treat, for me, despite the silly script and terrible music (worst music I've ever heard in a serial!) I'm glad the other reviewer enjoyed the story!
Frankly I think "Brenda Star, Reporter" is a silly lot of nonsense with a far below average story, a silly script filled with padding, silly "comic relief" characters talking nonsense that's best fast-forwarded over. But I can watch this silly thing over and over just for three of the most beautiful faces I've ever seen on the flickering screen: Joan Woodbury is a treat for the eyes every minute that she's in view, and she has a great personality too--vivacious and enthusiastic. And her adversary at the Police Department is played by who must have been the handsomest man God ever made--Kane Richmond. Audiences of the 1930s and 1940s who agreed that Robert Taylor had facial perfection probably never noticed Kane Richmond since he only played in "action movies for kids." His face was beautiful from any angle--a stupendous profile--and his beauty wasn't tawdry, leering and sneeringly sexual. It was "God-like."
Another beautiful face in this film is that of Jack Ingram, who played in even more serials than Richmond and was usually a scowling cowboy and nearly always a crook, as he is in this one. But "in this one" he looks downright presentable in his three-piece suit and fedora and his face, too, has a kind of perfection that shows up in close-ups.
Those three faces make this serial a treat, for me, despite the silly script and terrible music (worst music I've ever heard in a serial!) I'm glad the other reviewer enjoyed the story!