A big city reported becomes a small-town editor, Jerry’s headline may be censored but her font is bold. Peggy Shannon’s performance probably deserves a better film, but she gets an A for effort in this low-budget B film. Sterling Holloway steals every scene he’s in and one wishes he were the romantic interest instead of the bland and tepid Russell Hopton! Even the stuttering grocery store owner and family historian who is boorish yet kind makes a livelier love interest for our independently willed heroine.
Peggy’s breaking story about a suicide, mistress of a wealthy businessman, is quashed by her city editor because said businessman has stock in the newspaper. She confronts the boss and is fired but her exit was assured anyway, and her boyfriend gets her a job on small newspaper far away in a small dusty town. The elderly editor Samuel Webster of the Apex Advocate is surprised Jerry is a woman, one too pretty to be smart! She handles his condescension well and soon changes his Victorian-era attitude. It’s to Sam’s credit that he actually gives her a chance as his whole life and identity, his entire self-worth, is tied up with his newspaper. One imagines ink coursing through his varicose veins! Peggy is shrewd and cunning yet not mean-spirited and soon has local businesses increasing their advertising. She’s not above the quid pro quo.
Of course, there has to be a sordid story in a small town and this one involves an oil well that most of the poor townsfolk have invested in, run by an out-of-town businessman and the local banker. Happenstance along with solid reasoning skills leads Jerry to believe that it’s all a scam to bilk the townsfolk out of their hard-earned depression-era money. It is but not in quite the way we expect. The oil well is considered a loss by the original investors and the banker will buy back some of the debt of the poor citizens. But it isn’t dry! It seems Jerry was raised in an oil town and her investigation leads her to believe the well is going to be a gusher! And her newspaper will break the story...and the bank.
But the cigar-chomping fat banker has one more Ace up his sleeve as he takes control of the newspaper at the last minute, putting Sam Webster out to pasture or the junk yard, wherever old printing presses go to die. Her boyfriend is the nephew of the greedy banker, and he urges her to stay on as Editor and his uncle will invest in new presses and employees making the Advocate the apex it deserves. But no deal, Jerry has integrity and loyalty to the man who gave her a chance. She reveals her knowledge of the scheme to the banker and his protégé and blackmails them into signing the Apex over to Sam. Her doughy boyfriend is back, and they embrace but one wonders what she sees in his disloyal and patriarchal attitudes.
The direction and photography seem rather disinterested in the story they’re telling, the sets seem quickly reorganized to appear as disparate locations, and the actors occasionally flub a word and soldier on. Peggy Shannon carries the film on her back, holds it aloft like a brazen headline in Valiant typeface and makes a B picture earn its final grade.
Final Grade: (B)