Park Row

1952 US Samuel Fuller
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Sam Fuller's [sincere] love letter to the ideals of a young American newspaper-business unfolds like a dime-bag version of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane—complete with a Declaration of Principles and a dose of wickedly-good images: tracking across the film's lone set, a reconstructed Park Row; closing in on characters, turning office balusters into jail bars; squeezing as much out of a buck as possible. Gene Evans plays Phineas Mitchell, a good reporter treated badly by his employer; he quits, then sets up his own rival press. Ex-boss now-enemy Charity Hackett, played fiendish dominatrix by Mary Welch, poses business and romantic problems, slithering, dazzling in her only film role. Let me tell ya: it's a powder-keg of an 83-minutes, without much let-up. And though it gets a tad sentimental, with too many speeches, we must remember that this is Fuller. If ever a filmmaker deserved to get a bit doe-eyed and romantic...