Journalism movies can be great when they are straight up journalism movies without trying to be didactic. Then you get the ones that try to push a heavy handed message, usually about the unscrupulousness of the media, and those generally suck. "Hi, Nellie" was of the former variety.
"Hi, Nellie" stars Paul Muni as Sam Bradshaw, managing editor of a newspaper. He was relegated to the Heart Throb column written under the pseudonym Miss Nelson after he botched a big story. He took the high road and refused to smear a banker named Frank Canfield when all signs pointed to him being a crook who ran off with $500,000 of the Central Labor Bank's money. Every other paper made the easy connection between the bank's money issues and Canfield's sudden departure, but Bradshaw refused to cast aspersions on Canfield until he had more evidence. As a result, every paper in town was flying off the presses with a sensational story while Bradshaw's rag failed to register.
Bradshaw was demoted to the role of Miss Nelson aka Nellie, a job that was being done by Gerry Kale (Glenda Farrell). He could give the article his all, or stick it to his boss J. L. Graham (Berton Churchill) and be lousy at it.
Even as the new Heart Throb columnist he wasn't giving up on trying to find out what really happened to Canfield. For that he had his buddy Shammy McClure (Ned Sparks) a solid newspaperman himself.
I enjoyed "Hi, Nellie." It went from a nice comedy to a solid mystery without losing itself. Paul Muni sure knows how to pick 'em. He was in "Scarface," a good movie, and one of my favorites from that era, "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang."
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