... who directed only six features and one MGM short.
This hasn't gotten much airplay on TCM over the years. It's an hour long B drama/action/romance from MGM in 1937 when the studio had a deep enough bench to make OK B pictures like this with a good cast. George Murphy was on his way up, the rest of the cast on the way down or, at best, had seen better days. Yet they did well in this little film.
Bill Raeburn (George Murphy) is a hard charging reporter celebrating his first wedding anniversary with his wife Claire (Claire Dodd). Claire is celebrating, but not with Bill. She's started stepping out and keeping company with Bill's managing editor Walter Wiley (Sidney Blackmer). Wiley manages to keep everything quiet and even manages to give Bill assignments when he wants to see Claire. An opportunity appears for a long respite from Bill popping home when WIley least expects it when a man is killed and Bill suspects the local leader of a religious cult as the killer. Wiley suggests that Bill go undercover along with reporter Jane so that they can get the goods on "Brother Nameless", the cult leader. Complications ensue, many of them unexpected.
So I guess it was a problem at the time with women marrying men for a place to sleep and three square meals a day all the while the men were clueless? Maybe in the Depression. This might have been solved in this case, at least in part by - I dunno - maybe Bill not spending every night after work drinking heavily with fellow newspapermen and instead going home and keeping his wife company?
Note that the cult under investigation, although not an "eastern" type of religion, couldn't possibly be mistaken for a sect of Christianity because the production code would never allow a Christian preacher to be presented as crooked. John Wray, as the villain, and head of the cult does not disappoint with that wild eyed expression of his.
This is a solid little B that is mildly satisfying and even manages to get a message about the death penalty wedged in, with a compelling scene where the reporters are witness to an execution by hanging.
