This Man Is News
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
David Macdonald
Barry K. Barnes
Valerie Hobson
Alastair Sim
Edward Lexy
John Warwick
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
When Peter Brown, a gangster on trial for the Ritz Plaza jewelry heist, turns evidence against his accomplice, Crawford, and is released, Simon Drake, star reporter for the London Daily Gazette , anticipates his murder. Consequently, when MacGregor, Simon's editor-in-chief, takes him off the story, he refuses to follow orders and is fired. That night, at 3 a.m., Simon, terribly drunk, calls Mac with a fabricated scoop that he was wounded while witnessing Brown's murder. Simon's story makes the morning headlines of every London paper, and Inspector Holly of Scotland Yard informs Simon that Brown was really killed, but at 4:35 a.m. Peter Brown, Jr. then accuses Simon of murdering his father, and gang boss "Harelip" Murphy, the real killer, tries to frame Simon by planting the murder weapon in his flat. After Holly arrests Simon, his wife Pat arrives with an alibi, and he is released. Simon then finds Peter's dead body in his apartment and realizes that the gangsters mistook Peter for Simon. Meanwhile, Mac is ecstatic about Simon's sensational updates of the Brown murder case and hires him back at twice his salary along with Gazette headlines that read "This Man Is News." Two of Harelip's men, mask themselves, then tie up Pat and wait for Simon, but she sets the curtains on fire and scares them away by attracting the firemen. When a man fires a shot at Mac from within the newsroom, Holly and Simon suspect Simon's rival, reporter Johnnie Clayton, whom Simon saw leaving the Ritz with a hairlipped man the night of the robbery. Having finally found someone who can link Murphy to the crimes, Holly goes to arrest Clayton, but he escapes to Murphy's hideout, where he is killed. Although Clayton swears that Murphy has already left the country, Simon arrives home to find him bound and gagged by Pat. As Simon calls in his story, he kisses Pat.
Director
David Macdonald
Cast
Barry K. Barnes
Valerie Hobson
Alastair Sim
Edward Lexy
John Warwick
Gary Marsh
Philip Lever
Kenneth Buckley
Bobby Gall
James Birrie
David Keir
Tom Gill
Jack Vyvyan
Crew
Wilfred Arnold
Reginald Beck
Basil Dearden
Slim Hand
Henry Harris
Anthony Havelock-allan
Tony Keys
W. H. Lindop
Roger Macdougall
Roger Macdougall
Percival Mackey
Allan Mackinnon
Allan Mackinnon
R. Norton
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Paramount made an agreement with Pinebrook, Ltd. to distribute this and several other films in the U.S. as part of their quota arrangement. This picture was promoted as another Thin Man.
