Name the Woman (1934): A Messy But Watchable Newsroom Relic

Should you bother?

If you like movies where guys in fedoras talk way too fast and everyone has a secret, sure. It’s a B-movie through and through, so don’t go in expecting A Successful Calamity levels of polish. It’s for the folks who love that 1930s vibe where the city is always corrupt and the reporter is always hungover.

The plot is a bit of a scramble. We have a girl in trouble, a murder no one can solve, and a reporter who thinks he’s smarter than the police. Typical stuff, really. It moves fast, mostly because it doesn’t have the budget to linger on anything.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Name the Woman (1934) through its definitive frames.

The pacing is… well, it’s frantic. It’s like the editor was trying to beat a train or something. One minute they’re at the precinct, the next they are in a dimly lit office shouting about the 'governor's racket.' It feels a bit like The Burglar in its urgency, though with way less focus.

Odd little things I noticed

• There’s a scene in a newsroom that has about twenty people in it, but only three of them are actually doing anything. The rest are just walking in circles.
• The lighting in the courtroom is weirdly bright, like they forgot to dim the lamps for the dramatic parts.
• Arline Judge has this way of looking at the camera that feels totally modern, like she’s bored of the whole script.

Sometimes the dialogue is sharp as a tack, then it drops off a cliff. One character will say something really clever about the power of the press, and then immediately trip over a chair. It’s charming in a 'we-have-two-hours-to-film-this' kind of way.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Name the Woman (1934) through its definitive frames.

It’s not trying to be a meditation on anything, which is a relief. It’s just a story about a guy trying to get a scoop and maybe save a life along the way. Honestly, the movie gets a lot better once it stops trying to explain the legal stuff and just lets the reporter start shouting at people.

If you’ve seen The Climbers, you know the type of melodrama I’m talking about. It’s not subtle. The villain is so villainous he might as well have a neon sign above his head. But hey, it works.

Is it perfect? Hardly. The sound drops out in a couple of spots and the transition between scenes is jarring, but it’s got a pulse. It feels like someone actually made it, instead of some committee deciding what audiences wanted to see. 🍿