Girl in the News *** (1940, Margaret Lockwood, Barry K Barnes, Emlyn Williams) – Classic Movie Review 9337

Margaret Lockwood stars in Girl in the News (1940).

Margaret Lockwood completes a trio of films in a row for director Carol Reed as Ann Graham, a nurse wrongly accused of poisoning her wheelchair-using patient Edward Bentley (Wyndham Goldie), in the enjoyable, if routinely competent murder thriller Girl in the News (1940).

Ann has been taken on and set up as the patsy after being in court and acquitted of murder when her previous patient had died suspiciously and, this time, it looks very much like the butler did it.

Lockwood is fine and there is a particularly good cast, with Reed clearly demonstrating his excellent sympathy for and handling of actors. But this thriller is all too ordinary for a picture from Reed’s prime, though the acting saves it.

Sidney Gilliat’s screenplay is based on Roy Vickers’s novel.

Also in the cast are Barry K Barnes, Emlyn Williams, Margaretta Scott, Roger Livesey, Basil Radford, Irene Handl, Mervyn Johns, Kathleen Harrison, Richard Bird, Michael Hordern, Roland Culver, Edward Rigby, Felix Aylmer and Betty Jardine.

It follows Bank Holiday (1938) and A Girl Must Live (1939), with Night Train to Munich (1940) and The Stars Look Down (1940) to follow.

In between Bank Holiday (1938) and A Girl Must Live (1939), Lockwood made The Lady Vanishes (1938) for Hitchcock. She was certainly on a roll at the time.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9337

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