Hold the Press

Tim McCoy was an actor well known for his westerns during, mostly, the 1930s. However, I recently discovered four of his films on YouTube which were NOT westerns...and all made by Columbia Pictures. Some of them are quite good ("Police Car 17") and some, like "Hold the Press", which definitely are not.

In this film, Tim plays a crusading reporter...a really stupid one, actually. Why do I say that? Because he wants to get the goods on a mob and gets himself arrested for drunk driving in order to get thrown into prison!! Now I've seen similar films where the reporter makes a deal with the prosecutor's office to PRETEND to have broken the law and go undercover, but not here...he has a prison record now because of his dopey plan! In the end, he learns that the mobsters have an in with some folks on the parole board...but by then I'd already checked out due to the dumb plot and overall dullness of the film. It clearly could have used the excitement, shooting and fighting you'd normally see in a Tim McCoy western. A major misfire...mostly due to lousy writing.