"Five Star Final" 1931 Movie Review


IMBD 
Five Star Final official movie poster released in 1931
Directed by Marvyn Leroy, Five Star Final (1931) is a hard-hitting drama that exposes the evils of tabloid journalism. The film follows Joseph Randall (played by Edward G. Robinson), the weary editor of a struggling New York newspaper, as he is pressured into reviving a decades-old murder scandal to boost the paper’s circulation. As Randall’s staff digs into the private life of Nancy Vorhees – a woman who has long since atoned for her past– their relentless pursuit for a “good story” ultimately leads to an irreversible tragedy. 

A scathing indictment of yellow journalism, Five Star Final forces its audience to confront the exorbitant cost of sacrificing one’s morality for success. 

One of the film’s most striking motifs is Randall’s excessive hand-washing. While it may read today as a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), it also operates as a potent metaphor for guilt. Randall scrubs at his skin, desperate to wash away the filth he accumulates with every compromised decision. This ritual crescendos after he hears of the suicides and uses copious amount of soap, practically drowning himself in an act of futile atonement. It’s a haunting visual: the harder Randall tries to clean himself, the more inescapable his guilt becomes. In a newsroom where consequences are dismissed as collateral damage– Randall’s compulsion is a rare– and ultimately tragic– acknowledgment of culpability.
 
Final scene in Five Star Final as grief-strucken Jenny Vorhees confronts her parent's killers 

Perhaps no scene captures this movie's unsettling power better than the juxtaposition of Nancy Vorhees’s husband walking in to commit suicide next to his wife’s dead body as cheerful upbeat music plays on the radio. The soundtrack of normalcy blithely continues, utterly disconnected from the private tragedy unfolding just off-screen. It’s a chilling reminder of society’s indifference – of how easily suffering can be drowned out by noise while the human beings behind the headlines are reduced to spectacle. 

Among one of my favorite characters is Miss Taylor, Randall’s sharp, empathetic secretary played by famed 1920’s actress Aline MacMahon. Unlike the hardened journalists around her, Taylor is an outsider to the cynical profit-driven business of news. She recognizes the real-life consequences of the Gazette’s ruthless pursuit of a headline, consequences her colleagues either ignore or cold-heartedly exploit.

Front-page of the Gazette headlining the tragic suicides
In the film’s most incisive line, Taylor remarks, “You can always get people interested in the crucifixion of a woman.” Her empathy for Vorhees is a stark rebuke to the dehumanization practiced in the newsroom. Later, as the full horror of the paper’s actions became clear, Taylor’s consistent defense of Vorhees drives home the film’s fundamental message: there is a profound difference between public interest and morbid exploitation. 

At its core, Five Star Final is a ferocious critique of an industry that prioritizes profit over principle. Through Randall’s slow moral disintegration, the film lays bare the dangers of journalism unmoored from ethics— a reality as relevant in today’s 24-hour news cycle as it was in the tabloid wars of the 1930s. 

Thanks to Robinson’s brooding performance, MacMahon’s moral gravity, and Leroy’s unapologetic storytelling, this movie remains an unsettling testament to journalism’s highest responsibility– and its most shameful failures. 

It is a reminder to journalists that once integrity is abandoned, no amount of soap will ever wash the blood off our hands. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why am I here?

I grew up with five older siblings, each one seemingly more successful than the next. Student-body president, captain of the soccer team, valedictorian from Princeton, art prodigy, science whiz… then there was me. Not particularly great at anything, perpetually stuck in mediocrity. Always the best of the worst, or the worst of the best.  I was simply, average .  Books quickly became my refuge in elementary school. Hidden behind their pages, I could immerse myself into far off worlds where reality couldn’t reach me. My love of stories transcended onto paper, where I created my own heroic adventures with characters that I cherished, writing till my fingers were raw and my face was covered in lead.  “You are an incredibly talented storyteller,” my teacher informed me in the seventh grade. Unbeknownst to her, this innocent compliment sparked a decade’s long self-worth battle as a self-proclaimed ‘writer’. Suddenly, writing wasn’t about telling stories anymore– it became a fig...
Read more

Midterm Reflection

Image
When I first signed up for this class, I expected a dry timeline of dates, names, and prominent newspapers. Instead, I found myself delving into journalism's vibrant and often turbulent history, spanning from the colonial era of the 1600s to the transformative penny press period and beyond.  Free speech is the cornerstone of our First Amendment , and as my teacher proclaimed, “freedom of the press is a fundamental personal right, not an institutional one.” Meaning, our freedom to criticize the government is not exclusive to media organizations; it belongs to us. The adversarial role of journalism is to act as a check on governmental power, thus it is not just a right but a duty, to act as a watchdog for democracy.   Throughout our history, journalists have served this role well. From whistleblowers to muckrakers, journalists have persistently exposed corruption, challenged authority, and illuminated injustices hidden from public view.  Ida Tarbell, 1904 We learned ab...
Read more

History of Political Opinion Columns

Image
It started with a snake. In 1754, Benjamin Franklin carved a message into the soul of American colonies with a single image: a segmented serpent labeled with the names of the scattered provinces. Beneath it lay three urgent words: The Pennsylvania Gazette, 1754 Join, or Die. Meant to rally unity during the French and Indian War , the cartoon would later resurface as a powerful symbol in the Revolutionary War , a potent early reminder that in the world of politics, journalism is just as powerful as any weapon.  Long before political columns became a fixture in newspapers, journalism was a battleground for persuasion. The Colonial Press, often partisan and polemical, carried the spirit of resistance.  The Gilder Lehrman Institute The Sedition Act of 1798 as published in the  "Columbian Centinel" In our country’s earliest years, political writing was sharper, and riskier. In 1798, President John Adams signed the Sedition Act , criminalizing any criticism of the federal gov...
Read more