Paper Orchid (1949)
7/10
Didn't Quite Know Whether It Was a Romantic Comedy or a Murder Yarn!!
17 December 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Because the murder doesn't take place until more than half way through it's almost as though this film doesn't quite know what it wants to be - is it a racy newspaper adventure that Hollywood did so well in the 30s and 40s with beauteous Hy Hazell as Stella in the role that either Bette Davis or Glenda Farrell would have made their own? She gets a job on a paper with false references - suave Hugh Williams is her boss but changes are imminent with the death of the paper's owner. His widow takes charge and one by one the reporters find themselves wending their way to the rival paper.

Suddenly an artist, a "lame dog" being championed by a dizzy news photographer is found murdered in Stella's flat and things turn dramatic. The film had been bouncing along and I think at 90 minutes it was too long to sustain the light weight plot and the murder investigation seemed like an after thought. Sid James is fabulous, he has a couple of those famous chuckles but it's interesting that he seemed to be thought of as a heavy in the early part of his career. Not really a "heavy" here but his character has a lot of light and shade as Freddy Evans, a news hound who falls for Stella deeply, too deeply for this light weight yarn.
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