The Final Edition (1932) Review - Quick, Loud, and Lots of Fun

If you have a soft spot for those snappy, black-and-white newspaper yarns from the early thirties where everyone talks like they just drank four cups of black coffee, The Final Edition is absolutely worth seventy minutes of your life tonight.

But if you cannot stand crackly audio or plots that wrap up a bit too quickly, you should probably skip this one.

Mae Clarke plays Anne, a reporter who is frankly way smarter than any of the men in her office. She wants to nail a big crime boss, but things get messy when the new police commissioner gets murdered.

So what does she do? She basically infiltrates the mob by flirting with the boss's main guy, played by Bradley Page.

I love how fast this movie moves. It does not waste a single second explaining things that do not matter.

In one scene, a guy gets shot and the very next second we are in a bustling newsroom with thirty people shouting. The transition is so abrupt it almost makes you laugh. 😅

Actually, the sound design in the newsroom is hilarious. The typewriters are so loud they sound like someone is firing a Tommy gun right next to the microphone.

Pat O'Brien is also here, playing the editor. He does his usual thing where he looks incredibly stressed out and yells at everyone, which is always fun to watch.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of The Final Edition (1932) through its definitive frames.

He has this one face he makes when he is frustrated—eyes wide, jaw clenched—that he holds for a second too long. It is great.

There is a weird little moment where a background extra just stares directly at the camera for a split second before remembering they are in a movie. I had to rewind it twice to make sure I saw it right.

It reminded me of some of the rough edges in other early talkies like The Hidden Truth, where you can feel the crew still figuring out where to put the microphones.

Also, can we talk about Mae Clarke's hats? They are tilted at angles that seem to defy gravity. I kept waiting for one to fall off during a dramatic confrontation, but those things are glued on.

The romance angle is pretty weak, honestly. You can tell the writers, Dorothy Howell and Roy Chanslor, did not really care about the love story and just wanted to get back to the gangster stuff.

Here are a few random things I noted down while watching:

• The police commissioner has the most obvious fake mustache in cinematic history.
• Someone slams a door so hard the entire set wall visibly shakes.
• Mae Clarke's delivery of "Oh, go climb a tree" is the highlight of the whole film.

It is not a masterpiece like some of the bigger pre-code crime films, and it definitely lacks the sheer energy of The Whirlpool.

But there is a charming grittiness to it that you just do not get anymore.

It is just a tough, simple story told by people who knew how to make a cheap movie entertaining. Sometimes that is more than enough.