Directed: Lewis Milestone

Year: 1931

Nominated: Best Film, Best Director – Lewis Milestone, Best Actor – Adolphe Menjou

Plot in 25 Words: A gaggle of newspapermen await news of an execution, but what’s that? An escape! A scrupulous hack hides him to help to clear his name.

In My Opinion: This wasn’t the film I was expecting. I read a brief recap on a site famed for its accuracy and this wasn’t the film they prepared me for!.

A word used to describe this film was ‘slapstick’. This confused me a great deal. Unless somewhere one of the actors quietly slapped a stick then that is a sheer lie! There was the occasional moment of humour, mostly through very clever writing and performing. There was very little in the way of physical comedy, certainly nothing I would call slapstick .

For me, the best part of the film was the glimpse I got into the past. It was fascinating to see how the press worked, and how they handled the news of an execution. It was salacious and exciting, no signs of a protest and begging calls to the governor.

There was excitement and drama and fast-flowing talk. It made for quite an exciting film. There was corruption, jail breaks, terrible gun shot scenes, it was quite brilliant.

The romance subplot bored the pants off me and I didn’t give a stuff about it but the main plot was quite thrilling. The fast pacing of the group scenes was quite funny. Not slapstick, but funny nonetheless. Very Aaron Sorkin.

Star Performer: Slim Summerville as Pincus. He’s a very funny actor that I’ve enjoyed in a few films mow but he was spectacularly befuddled here and very sweet.

Overall: A good film. It had drama, humour and excitement. It surprised me how much I enjoyed it as the film went on.