Big News

Hard-drinking newspaper reporter Steve Banks is working on a big story - perhaps the biggest of his career. He learns that the speak-easy he frequents is also a front for a narcotics ring. The owner, a shady crook named Reno, tries to squelch Steve's scoop by putting pressure on the publisher to fire him. When that plan fails, Reno frames Steve for the murder of the paper's editor. With an already nasty reputation as a violent drunkard, Steve will be hard-pressed to prove his innocence to the hordes of policemen descending on the press room to arrest him.

Like His Girl Friday, which followed 11 years later, Big News is a fast-paced crime caper with a script full of snappy dialogue, and even features a husband and wife team of ace reporters. Robert Armstrong, who rocketed to fame in 1933 as Carl Denham in King Kong, heads a first rate ensemble cast that includes a young Carole Lombard. Director Gregory La Cava later won two Oscar nominations for Best Direction for his work on My Man Godfrey (1936) and Stage Door (1937).

• drama