Exposed

Glenda Farrell is a photographer for an evening paper. When she gets a shot of Otto Kruger in a flophouse, she triggers off a major lawsuit for the paper. He offers to settle for a smaller sum if Glenda can track down the daughter of a man murdered by Richard Lane's gang; his failure to get a conviction in the case triggered his slide. Glenda discovers the girl is dead, but she substitutes her room mate, Lorraine Krueger, an aspiring actress. Kruger falls for the gag, hands the check to Miss Krueger and goes back to work for the DA.

Miss Farrell is in fast-talking mode, a la Torchy Blaine, and as usual an absolute delight in this romantic comedy. It's a rare leading role for Kruger, who was in his 50s by the time this came out. It's not a great movie, just another Universal quickie directed by journeyman director Harold D. Schuster. It's the last of three movies by Schuster released that year.

Schuster had risen to Hollywood as an editor; he had done the cutting on SUNRISE. He ended his editing career in 1935 and turned director in 1937. His movies were not as distinguished as his editing and he wound up ending his career directing television in the 1960s. He died in 1986, less than a month shy of his 84th birthday.

Even the description shown here is wrong. There is nothing in this film about a crooked district attorney. In fact, he's the only guy who's playing it straight in the entire cast.

Glenda Farrell is at her best here as "Click" Stewart, a photographer for a sensational paper. She's out asking bums in the Bowery questions about a potential story when she runs into one bum (Otto Kruger) that is particularly irritable and irascible and strangely talks like an attorney. She gets his picture and finds out that the bum is William Reardon, a prosecutor who got a conviction five years before for murder against a man who ultimately turned out to be innocent. Unfortunately the exonerating evidence came after he had been executed. Even more unfortunately, the man left behind a daughter. Reardon resigned from the D.A.'s office, began to drink heavily, and ultimately wound up on skid row.

After the paper does a sensational story on Reardon, he files a $75000 slander and defamation suit against the paper and against Click and the editor in particular. This is where I lost the film just a bit - the guy really did fall apart and really did become a bum, so where is the slander and defamation? But I digress. Reardon agrees to settle for only $15000 if the paper produces the wrongly executed man's daughter. The problem is, after investigating, Click finds out she died two years before. Now Click doesn't want either herself or her paper to wind up paying 75000 dollars, so she gets her aspiring actress roommate to agree to play the part of the dead man's daughter. Reardon falls for the ruse, accepts the 15000 dollars, and turns it over to the girl he thinks is the dead man's daughter, Click's roommate. His conscience feeling clearer, he goes back to his old job as prosecutor, gets decent accommodations, and begins to feel like and therefore live like a human being again.

The problem is, Reardon and Click have begun to "click" and begin dating. The bigger problem is, she knows Reardon will hate her if he ever finds out that she tricked him. The even bigger problem is that a second story man who works for a local gangster knew the dead girl, and specifically knows she's a dead girl. Now he's trying to muscle in on the fifteen thousand that Click's roommate fraudulently collected, and threatening to offer proof that fraud has been committed. Can Click manage to get rid of or outsmart the blackmailer and keep Reardon from knowing the truth? Watch - if you can ever find a copy - and find out.

This film is a great screwball comedy. Glenda Farrell is at her saucy confident best, Otto Kruger excels as the fallen and now restored prosecutor, and Lorraine Krueger as Betty Clarke gives a buried treasure of a performance as an aspiring and not too capable actress who makes up for that with a large dose of charming naiveté. Look out for Eddy "Rochester" Anderson as the operator/receptionist at the apartment house where Click lives. He gives a hilarious performance in his small role.