Scandal Sheet (1952 film)

A newspaper man, Mark Chapman (Broderick Crawford), takes over an ailing New York daily newspaper, the New York Express and, by staging a number of publicity stunts, revives it as a scandal sheet. Chapman's wife, whom he years before deserted and left penniless, resurfaces and threatens to tell everyone who he is and what he has done to her, including driving her to attempt suicide. The two physically fight and he accidentally kills her, then tries to cover it up. From her purse, he retrieves money and a pawn shop receipt. When her body is discovered, the paper's star reporter, Steve McClearly (John Derek), begins investigating what has been determined to be a murder. As McClearly is joined by feature writer Julie Allison (Donna Reed), and they begin to dig deeper, the noose begins to tighten around Chapman's neck.

Chapman goes to the Bowery to redeem the pawn shop receipt. Before he can do so, Charlie Barnes, a former Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Express who has become alcoholic, stumbles upon him. Chapman gives Barnes a cash handout; accidentally included with the money is the receipt. Barnes claims the item, which turns out to be the dead woman's suitcase, in which he finds proof that Chapman is the murderer. He telephones Allison and McCleary, but McCleary thinks that Barnes is too drunk and is calling in a phony story. This angers Barnes and he says he is going to take the story to a competitor, the Daily Leader. Chapman hears about Barnes going to the Daily Leader, waits for him near the newspaper's headquarters, then accosts and kills him. McCleary and Allison take a trip to Connecticut to find the judge who married the murdered woman and the man seen in profile in a photograph from the suitcase. They bring this judge back to the Express, who identifies Chapman as the groom, but under a different name.[2]

• Broderick Crawford as Mark Chapman
• Donna Reed as Julie Allison
• John Derek as Steve McCleary
• Rosemary DeCamp as Charlotte Grant
• Henry O'Neill as Charlie Barnes
• Harry Morgan as Biddle (billed as Henry Morgan)
• James Millican as Lt. Davis
• Griff Barnett as Judge Elroy Hacker
• Jonathan Hale as Frank Madison
• Strother Martin as Man on crutches (uncredited)
• Garry Owen as Drunk in bar (uncredited and his final role)

Film rights to Sam Fuller's novel were sold for $15,000 to Howard Hawks during the war. After the war Fuller did a treatment and Sidney Buchman wrote a script, which Hawks then sold to Edward Small for $100,000.[3][4] John Payne was originally offered the lead,[5] then Dennis O'Keefe and Orson Welles were announced as stars.

Film critic Bosley Crowther was lukewarm about the film, writing, "The ruthlessness of tabloid journalism, as seen through the coolly searching eyes of Hollywood scriptwriters (who naturally shudder with shock at such a thing), is given another demonstration in Columbia's Scandal Sheet, a run-of-the-press melodrama which came to the Paramount yesterday. But apart from a bit of tough discussion of the public's avid taste for thrills and chills and a few dubious hints at tabloid techniques, there is nothing very shocking in this film ... The moral of all this dismal nonsense, we would gather, is meant to be that corruption breeds corruption. The moral is okay. Enough said."[6]

Critic Dennis Schwartz called the drama a "hard-hitting film noir thriller" and liked the camera work. He wrote, "Burnett Guffey's splashy black-and-white photography is filled with New York City atmosphere and the whirlwind energy buzzing around a press room."[7]

The Academy Film Archive preserved Scandal Sheet in 1997.[8]

• Scandal Sheet at the American Film Institute Catalog
• Scandal Sheet on IMDb
• Scandal Sheet at AllMovie
• Scandal Sheet at the TCM Movie Database
• Scandal Sheet opening titles on YouTube