Unholy Partners

A film about a partnership between a newspaper and a gangster. Bruce Corey is a journalist back from the First World War. He does not return to his old job; he wants his own paper. The problem is capital. Where he finds the money is clear: a man named Merrill Lambert who runs gambling and protection. He invests and becomes a partner. The paper succeeds. Corey sells copies with sensational stories and becomes influential in the city. But his partner does business in the same city, and at a certain point a story the paper is going to run concerns him directly. What the film is interested in is the independence of the press: whose money you publish on determines what you can write. The narrative runs that alongside a personal reckoning between the two men. Edward G. Robinson plays Corey and Edward Arnold plays Lambert. Laraine Day and Marsha Hunt are in the cast. Mervyn LeRoy directed. It is one of the films made quickly inside the 1940s studio system; it runs under ninety minutes. A little-known example for anyone who likes newspaper films and classical Hollywood drama. For a viewer looking for depth, the narrative moves fast and some characters are underdeveloped.