First National. Director Allan Dwan; Producer Robert T. Kane; Screenplay Ben Hecht, Tom Geraghty
Chester Conklin
Alice White
Bodil Rosing
Sam Hardy
Jack Egan
Ned Sparks
There isn't a newspaperman anywhere who won't enjoy this picture. Whether it's a slap or burlesque on a tabloid daily's methods, or a sort of satirical dreamland idea of bringing a boob into the limelight, to let him sink back into the darkness of the tenement, it's fine either way. There is much sublety to it all of the while. Chester Conklin's playing is no small part of this.
The daily tab that uses Conklin's subway worker as a mark for its mayorality candidate is a constant laugh. When the daily - after Conklin has fallen off the subway platform and is nearly run over by a train but not hurt, going to a hospital because he is sleepy - goes to Conklin's home to get the big story complete, the reporters find the wife has but a grown-up daughter. So they send for the kids in the tenement and have a group picture taken, the kids bawling 'We want our daddy,' with the mother in the centre. When Conklin sees the picture in the paper, he rubs his head, saying to a nurse, 'How long have I been here?'
Silent. (B&W) Extract of a review from 1928. Running time: 77 MIN.
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