Scandal Sheet * (1939, Otto Kruger, Ona Munson, Edward Norris) – Classic Movie Review 11,914

Otto Kruger (September 6, 1885 – September 6, 1974).

Director Nick Grinde’s 1939 Columbia Pictures black and white crime drama film Scandal Sheet is a rough-hewn, melodramatic newspaper yarn with tough scandal sheet tabloid editor Jim Stevenson (Otto Kruger) ready to kill to stop his young reporter son Peter Haynes (Edward Norris) being revealed as illegitimate.

Haynes (Norris) does not know that he is illegitimate, leaves his job with his dad to work for a rival and works to reveal the old man as a killer.

The contrived script gives the actors a very hard time making it seem credible in this cheap little support feature, though Otto Kruger makes a charming villain.

The cast are Otto Kruger, Ona Munson, Edward Norris, John Dilson, Don Beddoe, Eddie Laughton, Selmer Jackson, Edward Marr, Dorothy Comingore [Linda Winters], Nedda Harrigan, Frank M Thomas, James Craig, John Tyrrell, Beatrice Blinn, Dick Curtis, William Lally, Hermine Sterler, Barbara Pepper, Kathryn Sheldon, Gertrude Sutton, George Hickman, Robert Homans, C Montague Shaw, Richard Fiske, Robert Sterling, Charles McAvoy, James Millican, Robert Spencer, Casey Johnson, Hans Schumm, and Walter Sande.

Dorothy Comingore’s career ended in 1951, when she was caught up in the Hollywood blacklist, having acquired a powerful enemy in the 78-year-old media mogul William Randolph Hearst because of Citizen Kane. The following year she was called to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee about her alleged Communist connections, and she declined to answer on constitutional grounds. Her last movie appearance was in a supporting role in The Big Night (1951) starring John Drew Barrymore.

Otto Kruger is remembered for Hitchcock’s Saboteur.

Ona Munson has been listed as a member of the sewing circle group, a clique of lesbians organised by actress Alla Nazimova, one of Munson’s lovers. Munson’s two marriages are thought to be lavender marriages to conceal her bisexuality and affairs with women.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 11,914

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