Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Breakinger A Brilliant Conflict

2freensel I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

JohnHowardReid George Brent (newsman), Brenda Marshall (reporter), Gene Lockhart (Lonesome Club manager), Roscoe Karns (reporter), Paul Harvey (publisher), Eduardo Ciannelli (Greer), Frank Richards (Scotty), Fred Kelsey (radio fan), Erville Alderson (Crowder), George Meeker (Cummings), Edith Barrett (Lucille), Jack Carr (No-Neck), Joseph Crehan (warden), Charles Halton (Gates), Dick Elliott (Meeker), Olin Howland (caretaker), Harry Hayden (Judge Hardacre), Joe Downing (Varney), Tom Dugan (trusty), Don DeFore (reporter), John Dilson.Director: JO GRAHAM. Screenplay: Fred Niblo, Jr., Hector Chevigny. Story: Roy Chanslor. Photography: Tony Gaudio, James Van Trees. Film editor: David Weisbart. Produced for Warner Bros by famous New York newsman Mark Hellinger, this film used elements from Hi, Nellie!, Final Edition, The Girl on the Front Page and other Roy Chanslor yarns. U.S. release: 10 October 1942. Australian release: 22 February 1945. 77 minutes. COMMENT: A brisk re-make of "Front Page Woman" (1935), this fast, funny and most delightfully and unexpectedly facetious newspaper yarn has all the makings of a cult classic. Directed by former Michael Curtiz assistant, Jo Graham, in a furiously stylish Curtiz style, the movie features a host of our favorite character players at their most ingratiating. Despite hot competition from Ciannelli, Lockhart and Hayden, it's Frank Richards, however, who walks away – or rather dances off – with the picture. His zest in swinging Lonesome Marshall around the club is the gem of gems!

cutterccbaxter "You Can't Escape Forever" is a great title for a film, although I'm not convinced it fits this story. This movie is really crisply done. All the scenes clip along and never linger too long. The reading of the lines by the actors are so rapid fire that Frank Fox the dialogue director must have worked overtime. The opening execution scene made me chuckle. There always seems to be a thunderstorm happening when someone is about to be strapped to the electric chair. In this case they did use the atmosphere as part of the story and not simply a clichéd mood device. I didn't find "Forever" a waste of time, but there was nothing about it that will linger in my movie memory banks for an extended period of time.

John Seal You Can't Escape Forever is an odd duck: it's a bottom of the bill second feature that successfully blends comedy, romance, gangsters, and old dark house thrills. George Brent plays the crusading editor of a local paper out to put the kibosh on the activities of a local black marketeer, played to absolute perfection by Edward Cianelli, surely one of the least appreciated heavies of Hollywood history. Brent is aided by lady love/gal reporter Brenda Marshall and comic foil Roscoe Karns, and the film manages to take in a trip to the Death House, a deserted columbarium, and a lonely hearts club apparently modeled after Conan Doyle's Red Headed League. There are some very well choreographed action sequences and beautiful cinematography by James Van Trees and Tony Gaudio, the masters of low budget photography. If you like 'B' features, you will be more than satisfied with You Can't Escape Forever--even if the title seems somewhat inappropriate considering that villain Varney (Joe Downing), in an apparent oversight by Joseph Breen's office, actually DOES escape the chair!

bl-11 The entire film uses that hectic non-stop dialogue style that was far more frequent in the black and white days. It makes it kind of difficult to feel involved, more like you are watching a comedy show than a film. And the means with which the main story is introduced, in the same blase fashion, doesn't lend it any gravity. In the end you feel you have watched a long episode of an old sit-com.