The Girl in the News

The plot is thick, and it is difficult to follow all the twists and turns of this intricate concoction of the purposed perfect murder. Margaret Lockwood is perfect as the nurse under suspicion, since more than one patient of hers happens to die of poisoning. Fortunately she has a young alert attorney for her defense who sees through the web of intrigue and finally dispels it. This is typical for Sidney Gilliat's thriller construction with many difficult threads to follow through to an end which no one could have any idea of. The dialog is intensive, intelligent and sharp all through, and inspector Roger Livesey is too straight forward to be able to be fooled or to not commit mistakes. The combination of Gilliat's mastership in script writing with Carol Reed's equally masterful direction makes this film a gem among British thrillers of the 30s. We don't often see Carol Reed conduct a trial and least of all in a murder case, but he handles it expertly only by directing the human hands without any unnecessary dramatic action. This film deserves to be watched more than once, and each time you will find new values in it.

Core to the plot is the extent to which a justifiable acquittal at a trial nevertheless prejudices the accused's future life. Given modern day concerns over sensational press coverage this is an issue as valid today (probably more so) than it was in war-time Britain. But the film does not follow this line, rather it presents us with a good old-fashioned courtroom drama, culminating in a finale of which Perry Mason would have been proud. Quite how the hero lawyer manages this stretches the judicial imagination somewhat, especially with a flawed witness, whose evidence clinches the outcome, not having to testify from the witness box.

Despite these reservations this is an enjoyable enough production which canters along at a good pace without any pretensions to high art. And it was nice to see some early work from two actresses, Irene Handl (particularly malevolent as the first "victim") and Kathleen Harrison, who both went on to greater things in post-war British TV.

Most film fans will have seen "The Wicked Lady"(1945) before they see this 1940 film.It was surely in playing roles like nurse Anne Graham which convinced casting directors and producers that Margaret Lockwood would be ideal in her most famous role as Lady Barbara Skelton & Highwaywoman. Another reviewer mentions prejudice and it shows that society still believes "there is no smoke without fire".To get a job (even though you have been aquitted of murder) especially in a caring job like nursing, it is sad that it is necessary to change your name because prejudice lingers on in the mind of society.However in Hollywood U.S.A. and in other rich countries, it cynically seems that if you are rich and famous you can never be found guilty of a serious crime let alone serve time in prison when one can afford high priced lawyers to get yourself aquitted.So often the lower (and impecunious) social orders feel the full weight of the law.But here Anne Graham's lawyer for once is the hero.He bamboozles the villain to give himself away to justice using a neat bluff in court!Nice to see Roger Livesey playing the detective.His most remembered role is the doctor in "A Matter of Life & Death"(1946) and "The Secret Life of Colonel Blimp" both Powell & Preesburger films.

Margaret Lockwood is "The Girl in the News" as a nurse who is acquitted of murder, only to find herself accused again. Carol Reed directed, and besides Lockwood, it stars Emlyn Williams and Roger Livesey. Lockwood is Anne Graham, a young nurse working in a household when her invalid employer takes too many sleeping pills. Graham is accused of murder but acquitted. However, she finds getting a job impossible until she changes her name. Someone mails her a classified ad for a nursing job, for which she applies and is accepted. Then history repeats itself.

A very good film, excellently directed by Reed with an underplayed performance by Lockwood. Emlyn Williams plays her attorney. Though I figured this film out before the plot unfolded, "The Girl in the News" is still good and worth seeing.

A young nurse who has been acquitted of poisoning her employer manages to find work under another name - and is accused of murder, by the same method, a second time. We know the guilty parties well in advance, and the solution of the crime by the nurse's attorney owes more to luck and intuition than to detection. There's no chase scene, no romance, not a great deal of suspense. From Carol Reed, the same director who made "Night Train to Munich", "Odd Man Out" and "The Third Man", this is a remarkably bland film. Still, it's very smoothly made, everything is focused on the story line, and the acting is uniformly excellent. It's a solid, professional piece of work (and I know that sounds like damning with faint praise), and while there's no urgent reason to see it more than once, it's certainly worth seeing once.