User reviews

If you think about the plot too much with "Up for Murder", you'll likely see more holes and unbelievable situations than you expected. Still, despite this, it is enjoyable and a decent time-passer.

Lew Ayres plays Robert, an unbelievably naive young man who has ideas about becoming a reporter. Amazingly, with nothing to recommend him other than a perennially drunk employee, he's given a job! However, his first assignment is an odd one...to be the escort for the lady society editor at the paper. Soon, Robert is smitten with Myra (Genevieve Tobin)...to the point of being almost embarrassing. What he doesn't realize is that she's the newspaper owner's mistress...a kept woman. Everybody seems to know this but dopey Robert...and soon he's wooing her like a schoolboy with his first love. However, in the midst of this comes tragedy...and I'll say no more about that.

You just have to see this film to understand why I thought it was ridiculous. Ayres' character is just TOO naive...to the point of being, well, a bit of an idiot. And, what he later does in the film clearly confirms the idiot part! Not a bad film...but one whose plot really is tough to swallow.

This was directed by Monta Bell, the cameraman was Karl Freund and it starred Lew Ayres and Genevieve Tobin. The story was no great shakes, as cub reporter Ayres falls in love with Tobin, the paper's society editor and mistress of the publisher. When Ayres and the publisher confront each other in Tobin' swank apartment, Ayres kills him by accident. The paper's lawyer decides to cover it up to save the paper's reputation, and blame Ayres without any mention of Tobin. They go along with this nonsense.

After the death, Ayres is out wandering the street, and the lighting gets very Gemanic, I remarked that in Afraid to Talk, Freund shot sequences in primitive but definite noir fashion. Here, a year earlier, the lighting style refers to older works. Has anyone written anything on the position of Karl Freund in film noir, or do they concentrate on his work for I Love Lucy and how to light William Frawley?

Given the problems with the story logic and some clangorous and ill-timed lines, I don't find this one particularly great, but it is certainly more interesting on a technical level and Tobin is great.

"Up For Murder" is a tame but fairly interesting pre-code picture from Universal. Its main value is for its acting performances, especially Genevieve Tobin, society page editor for a big-city newspaper, and Lew Ayres, a mail room go-fer who gets promoted to cub writer. It's all as the reviewers above describe it, with Tobin as a woman of the world and Ayres as an infatuated youth. Purnell Pratt is the paper's publisher and Frank McHugh is a writer/drunkard, a part which becomes tiresome midway through.

At a shade over an hour the picture is not burdensome but is not as tense and suspenseful as its title sounds. The storyline itself is straightforward but the ending is contrived and somewhat fatuous; murder in any form is normally pretty serious business. I almost fell off my seat watching the happy ending, as the story to that point was dramatic and true to life, and it brought my rating down a peg or two.

Capitolfest, Rome, NY, 8/16.

Naïve newspaper office boy Lew Ayres (Robert) lives with his mother Dorothy Peterson and dreams of becoming a reporter. He gets his wish but is then ordered to escort the newspaper's Society Editor Genevieve Tobin (Myra) to an important social function. His life is changed both in a good way......and in a bad way.....

It's a straightforward story that stretches the imagination a little. Richard Tucker (Herk) puts in a good effort to cover up the murder story that plays out but I think there are serious consequences for him at the film's end. Lying in court is frowned upon. The film takes us down the path of loyalty to the newspaper first. Forget the truth, that can be fixed at a later date. It's still the same today, especially the 'forget the truth' part.

It's well acted by all and Genevieve Tobin is the most memorable. Lew Ayres is slightly too naïve but he does okay portraying an innocent lovesick young man. Frank McHugh (Collins) plays the office drunk and puts a bit of depth into his character which was a good move or he would have been incredibly annoying. This allows him to just about carry off the irritating drunkard role.

Newspapers are always up to tricks. I know of one UK well-regarded paper that published lies in order to protect the daughter of the owner or editor or whatever high up position this guy held. The story was printed that her boyfriend was climbing up the outside of her building to be with her as a romantic gesture when tragedy struck and he fell. The reality was that she had locked him in the apartment and he had climbed out of the window to escape from her. Don't believe what you read!

Bing with The Rhythm Boys recorded a song for the movie Many a slip. The song was not used but inserted as background in this movie. Others have already covered everything else and the story in itself.

To reach the requied number of characters I can mention other lost Crosby movie songs. March of time featured Bing singing Poor little G- string but the movie never was released however the sound recording still exist. Bing also had a song filmed for the movie Those three french girls, unfortunately cut out and lost. Bing did appear for a fem minutes singing in Reaching for the moon. They did also keep Bing singing in a party scene of Confessions of a co-ed.