The Girl in the News
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Carol Reed
Margaret Lockwood
Barry K. Barnes
Emlyn Williams
Roger Livesey
Margaretta Scott
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
As nurse Anne Graham prepares to leave her charge, the bed-bound Gertrude Mary Blaker, Gertrude tearfully admits she stashed some pieces of silver in Anne's bag in order to frame her for robbery as punishment for quitting. Gertrude then apologizes, and Anne agrees to stay. That night, however, Gertrude mistakenly overdoses on sleeping pills, and Anne is arrested for her murder. During her trial, brilliant young lawyer Stephen Farringdon convinces the jury that Anne is innocent. Hours later, Anne visits Stephen to thank him for believing in her, but when she realizes that he, too, doubts her innocence, she leaves. Over the next few weeks, Anne, stigmatized by the trial, is unable to find a new job until a newspaper is sent to her in which a job listing has been circled. Anne interviews for the job under the pseudonym of Anne Lovell, and is accepted. She soon grows close to her patient, Edward Bentley, who feels frustrated at being confined to a wheelchair, and does not realize that Edward's wife Judith is having an affair with the butler, Tracy. When Judith sends Anne into town to pick up a prescription for the same sleeping pills that killed Gertrude, she bumps into Stephen, who insists that he trusts and wants to date her. On the day that Anne is to go out with Stephen, Tracy slips fifteen sleeping pills into Edward's tea, and Anne administers it before she leaves. When Edward's body is found, the doctor and police begin to suspect murder, and Stephen's roommate, policeman Bill Mather, finds Stephen on his date with Anne and inadvertently informs him about the death. Stephen suspects Anne of killing her patient, but questions her until he believes in her innocence and then tells her what has happened. The two spend the next few days trying to gather evidence of her innocence, and when Stephen looks for clues at the Bentleys', he notices that Tracy recognizes him. He therefore deduces that Tracy must have attended Anne's first trial, and hired her so that he and Judith could murder Edward and have someone to frame. Meanwhile, a taxi driver has led Bill to Stephen and Anne's hideaway, and he bursts in and arrests Anne. At her second, highly publicized trial, Stephen attacks Judith, who insists that she was not involved in the murder. Soon after, however, he finds a photograph of Tracy outside Fetherwood's barbershop, which is located next door to the courthouse, and even though Fetherwood is now blind and cannot identify Tracy, Stephen tricks Tracy into believing he could be identified as having been present at Anne's first trial. While on the witness stand, Tracy shouts out Judith's name, causing her to collapse. Days later, the judge announces that Judith signed a confession and then died, and Anne is set free.
Director
Carol Reed
Cast
Margaret Lockwood
Barry K. Barnes
Emlyn Williams
Roger Livesey
Margaretta Scott
Wyndham Goldie
Basil Radford
Irene Handl
Mervyn Johns
Betty Jardine
Kathleen Harrison
Felix Aylmer
Leo Genn
Roland Culver
Michael Hordern
Crew
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
This film marked the second collaboration, after Night Train, between Margaret Lockwood and Carol Reed. Modern sources add Edward Rigby, Jerry Verno, Allan Jeayes, Richard Bird, V. R. Bateson, Ben Williams, Pauline Winter, Bryan Herbert, Roddy Hughes and Aubrey Mallalieu to the cast. After being released in London in 1940, the film was brought to America in 1941. Although most contemporary sources state that the picture was distributed by M-G-M, some indicate that Twentieth Century-Fox was the distributor.
