The Story (continued)
With
increasingly exasperated looks and the first of many kicks (under
the table), Hildy tries to silence Walter's asides about their past
and his disguised insults directed at Bruce:
Walter: Well Bruce, how is business up there? Any
better?
Bruce: Well, Albany's a mighty good insurance town. Most people there
take it out pretty early in life.
Walter: Yeah, well I can see why they would. (Hildy kicks him again
beneath the table, causing him to flinch.)
Bruce begins his sales pitch for the value of an insurance
policy:
Bruce: I figure I'm in one business that really helps
people. Of course, we don't help you much while you're alive, but
afterward - that's what counts!
Walter: Sure. (He laughs) I don't get it. (Hildy administers another
kick, but misses Walter's shins and squarely hits the waiter's shins
instead.) Nice going.
Hildy announces their plans to leave only two hours
later - at four o'clock - on the night train to Albany with a wedding
the following day. Immediately, Walter tries to figure out a way
to delay Hildy's departure and ultimately prevent their marital hitching
- he pre-arranges for the waiter to call him away for a phone call
while insinuating smutty thoughts about their sleeping arrangement
on the train:
Walter: Listen, Bruce, I, uh, let me get that straight,
I must have misunderstood you. You mean you're taking the sleeper
today and then getting married tomorrow?
Bruce: Oh, well, it's not like that.
Walter: Well, what is it like?
Hildy: Oh poor Walter. He'll toss and turn all night. Perhaps we
better tell him Mother's coming along, too.
Walter: (To Hildy) Mother? Why, your mother kicked the bucket!
Bruce: No, my mother, my mother.
Walter (sarcastically): Oh, your mother. Oh, well, that relieves
my mind.
Hildy: (To Walter) It was cruel to let you suffer that way. (To Bruce)
Isn't Walter sweet? Always wanting to protect me.
Walter: Well, I admit I wasn't much of a husband, but you can always
count on me, Hildy.
When Walter excuses himself briefly for a phone call,
Bruce, totally clueless to Walter's intentions, tells Hildy about
his newfound admiration for her ex-husband:
Bruce: You know, Hildy, he's not such a bad fellow.
Hildy: No, he should make some girl real happy.
Bruce: Uh-huh.
Hildy: (To herself) Slap-happy.
Bruce: He's not the man for you. I can see that. But I sort of like
him. He's got a lot of charm.
Hildy: Well, he comes by it naturally. His grandfather was a snake.
Walter returns to the table with the "lowdown" on
the Earl Williams case - a case that the newspaper is championing.
Williams is "...a poor little dope who lost his job and went
beserk and shot a cop who was coming after him to quiet him down.
Now they're gonna hang him tomorrow...It happened to be a colored
policeman and you know what that means Hildy." Hildy describes
the inherent racism of the case: "The colored vote's very important
in this town." She notes that with an election coming up in
three or four days: "that Mayor - he'd hang his own grandmother
to be re-elected." Bruce thinks that it might be easy to show
that the deluded, insane man wasn't criminally responsible for his
crime and then 'put him away' in an institution rather than hang
him. An additional medical expert, Dr. Egelhoffer (Edwin Maxwell),
who will examine Williams before he is hanged, may declare him sane
(and therefore punishable by death).
Ex-journalist Hildy with the news-hound in her blood
(and with Walter's encouragement) shows an irresistible, intense
desire to become involved in the case, to make the news exciting
for the readership, and to prove Williams' disturbed mental state:
Walter: Well, he'll (Egelhoffer) say the same as
all the rest.
Hildy: Suppose he does.
Walter: Well, what's the scheme, Hildy?
Hildy: Look Walter, you get the interview with Earl Williams. Print
Egelhoffer's statement. And right alongside of it - you know, double
column - run your interview. (She gestures to show the placement
of the two columns side by side) Alienist [a physician who treats
mental disorders and specializes in legal matters] says he's sane.
Interview shows he's goofy.
Walter: Aw Hildy, you can do it. You could save that poor devil's
life.
Even Bruce, now feeling sentimental about the convicted
criminal, is cajoled and willing to spare a few hours - and supportive
of Hildy's death-row interview with Williams:
Bruce: How long would the interview take?
Walter: Oh, about an hour for the interview. Another hour to write
it. That's about all.
Bruce: Hildy, we could take the six o'clock train if it'd save a
man's life.
Hildy: No, Bruce. (To Walter) If you want to save Earl Williams'
life, you write the interview yourself. You're still a good reporter.
Walter: Aw, Hildy. You know I can't write that kind of thing. It
takes a woman's touch. It needs that heart, that...
Hildy: Now don't get poetic, Walter. Get Sweeney. He's the best man
you've got on the paper for that sob-sister stuff.
Walter explains that Sweeney is not to be found because
he is out celebrating the birth of twins: "So Sweeney has twins,
and Earl Williams gets hanged tomorrow." Walter intimidates
Hildy's gullible husband, claiming that if she doesn't interview
Earl Williams, and through her interview convince the governor to
grant Williams a last-minute reprieve before his execution at dawn,
that Bruce will ultimately be responsible for an unjust death:
Well you argue with her. You argue with her. Otherwise,
you're going on a honeymoon with blood on your hands. How can you
have any happiness after that? All through the years, you'll remember
that a man went to the gallows because she was too selfish to wait
two hours. I tell ya, Bruce, Earl Williams' face will come between
you on the train tonight and at the preacher's tomorrow, and all
the rest of your lives.
Hildy exposes Walter's deceitful "act" - "I
just remembered. Sweeney was only married four months ago." Walter
admits defeat: "All right, Hildy, you win. I'm licked." In
a final, desperate move to delay her departure, he offers Bruce a "business
proposition" to purchase some life insurance:
You persuade Hildy to do the story and you can write
out a nice fat insurance policy for me.
Although Bruce refuses to use his wife "for business
purposes," Hildy is actually pleased to take Walter's money.
She persuades Bruce to accept Walter's offer to buy a $100,000 life
insurance policy - greedy for the $1,000 commission they will earn:
Hildy: We could use that money, Bruce. How long would
it take to get him examined?
Bruce: Well, I could get a company doctor here in twenty minutes.
Hildy: Alright Bruce, suppose you have Mr. Burns examined over in
his office and see what they'll allow on that old carcass of his...
Walter: Say, I'm better than I ever was. How do ya like...
Hildy: There was never anything to brag about. Now look, Bruce. I'll
go back and change and dress. And after you get the check, you phone
me. I'll be in the press-room of the Criminal Courts Building. Oh
Walter!
Walter: What?
Hildy: By the way, I think you'd better make that a certified check.
Walter: What do you think I am, a crook?
Hildy: Yes. No certified check, no story. Get me?
Walter: It'll be certified. Want my fingerprints?
Hildy: No thanks. I've still got those.
Most of the remainder of the film is set in the busy
press-room of the Criminal Courts Building, where frequent penny-ante
poker card games entertain the newshawk-journalists who are hungry
for news - and await the gallows hanging of Earl Williams. The room
is littered with hot-line telephones to each of the newspapers (frequently
used to call in hot tips from police stations, hospitals, etc.),
tables, and one large rolltop desk. Roy Bensinger (Ernest Truex)
of the Morning Tribune calls in a story:
A new lead on the hanging - This alienist from New
York, Dr. Max J. Egelhoffer, Egelhoffer, yeah, he's gonna interview
with him in about half an hour in the Sheriff's office...Here's
the situation on the eve of the hanging...A double guard is being
thrown around the jail, the Municipal Buildings, railroad terminals,
and elevated stations to prepare for the expected general uprising
of radicals at the hour of execution.
Murphy (Porter Hall), another reporter, sees a case
of political corruption: "The Sheriff has just put two hundred
more relatives on the payroll to protect the city from the Red Army
which is leaving Moscow in a couple of minutes."
Hildy enters the familiar press-room (of her working
past) and is affectionately greeted by the other reporters. Now on
her way out but making a "farewell appearance," she tells
them of her marriage and six o'clock train departure-to-Albany plans:
I'm going into business for myself...I'm getting
married tomorrow...It's gonna be all right. I'm gonna settle down.
I'm through with the newspaper business.
They can't imagine her becoming domesticated: "singing
lullabies" and "beating rugs." From the direction
of the jail, they hear the loud sounds of officials testing the gallows
for the hanging. Hildy tells them she made a deal to cover one final
event before settling down:
Hildy: I have to do a yarn on Williams. Did he know
what he was doing when he fired that gun?
Murphy: If you ask us, 'No.' If you ask the state alienist, the answer
is 'Yes.'
Hildy: Who is he [Williams]? What's he do?
Jake McCue (Roscoe Karns): He was a bookkeeper. He starts out at
twenty dollars a week and after fourteen years, he gradually works
himself up to seventeen fifty...Plus the company goes out of business
and Williams loses his job...
Ernie: So he starts hangin' around the park, listenin' to a lot of
soapbox spellbinders makin' phony speeches and begins to believe
'em.
Endicott (Cliff Edwards): And makes some of his own.
After a physical exam by the insurance doctor in his
newspaper office, Walter is determined to be in great health and
not a bad risk for an insurance policy. As a "debt of honor" for
being "a bad husband" to Hildy, he chooses her as his "beneficiary" on
the life insurance policy that is being written out by Bruce. Walter
speculates that he may be "good for" at least twenty-five
years, after which his death and insurance pay-out may benefit his
beneficiary - his ex-wife. His theatrical emoting causes Bruce to
become choked up:
Walter: Well, by that time, you'll probably have
made enough so that the money won't mean anything to you. But suppose
you haven't made good Bruce? What about Hildy's old age? Think
of Hildy. Ah - I can see her now. White-haired. Lavender and old
lace. Can't you see her, Bruce?
Bruce (dreamily): Yes. Yes I can.
Walter: She's old, isn't she? Now Bruce, don't you think that Hildy
is entitled to spend her last remaining years without worries of
money? Of course you do, Bruce.
Bruce: Of course, if you put it that way.
Walter: And remember, I love her too.
Bruce: Yes, I'm beginning to realize that.
Walter: And the beauty of it is, she'll never have to know until
I've passed on. Oh well, maybe she'll think kindly of me after I'm
gone. (He wipes an imagined tear.)
Bruce: Gee! (Bruce blows his nose into a handkerchief.) You make
me feel like a heel comin' between ya.
Walter: No, no Bruce. You didn't come between us. It was all over
for her before you came on the scene. For me...it'll never be.
By phone from the press room, Hildy advises her naively-innocent
fiancee to put Walter's certified check (payment for the insurance
policy) in the lining of his hat, so that her crafty ex-husband won't
find a way to get it back. As Bruce leaves the offices, Diamond Louis
is put on his trail.
Hildy bribes the jail warden Cooley (Pat West) with
a twenty-dollar bill - a $20 dollar bill conveniently falls out of
her purse to the floor and she asks him: "Say, is this your
money?" She is granted an interview with the doomed prisoner
Earl Williams in his caged jail cell. The interview scene is introduced
with a sharply-angled shot high above the cell. She pulls up a chair
next to the cage to speak to him, mostly in soft and hushed tones
to emphasize her sensitivity to the doomed man's plight.
Williams claims he can't plead insane because he's "just
as sane as anybody else" and that the shooting of the black
policeman was clearly an accident: "I'm not guilty. It's - it's
just the world." Williams remembers some of the soap-box speeches
in the park he listened to when he was unemployed, recalling one
fellow who talked about an economic theory called "production
for use." She hands him a lit cigarette ("sorry about the
lipstick, Earl"), but he declines because he doesn't smoke and
gives it back. She only fiddles with the cigarette for the rest of
their conversation, ironically not using the cigarette for
the purpose it was produced. To prove herself as a "great newspaperman," Hildy
decides to use the economic theory to explain the motive for Earl's
murder of the cop:
Williams: He [the soap-box speaker] said everything
should be made use of.
Hildy: It makes quite a bit of sense, doesn't it?...Now look, Earl,
when you found yourself with that gun in your hand, and that policeman
coming at you, what did you think about?...You must have thought
of something...Could it have been, uh, 'production for use'?...What's
a gun for Earl?
Williams: A gun?...Why to shoot, of course.
Hildy: Oh. Maybe that's why you used it.
Williams: Maybe.
Hildy: Seems reasonable?
Williams: Yes, yes it is. You see, I've never had a gun in my hand
before. That's what a gun's for, isn't it? Maybe that's why.
Hildy: Sure it is.
Williams: Yes, that's what I thought of. Production for use. Why,
it's simple isn't it?
Hildy: Very simple.
Williams: There's nothing crazy about that, is there?
Hildy: Nope. Nothing at all.
Williams: You'll write about that in your paper, won't you?
Hildy: You bet I will.
The interview ends with Earl thanking Hildy for being
a caring person: "I liked talking to you."
Back at the press room, the newsmen are playing cards
when Mollie Malloy (Helen Mack), a Clark Street prostitute who sympathetically
befriended "cuckoo" Earl and sent him roses, walks in.
They callously greet her ("How's tricks?") and she likewise
has a low opinion of the 'wise guys': "I've been lookin' for
you tramps." She is disturbed by the press' salacious insults
and the "swell story" they gave her when alleging she was
Earl's "girlfriend":
I came to tell ya what I think of ya, all of ya...You
crumbs have been makin' a fool out of me long enough. I never said
I loved Earl Williams and was willing to marry him on the gallows.
You made that up, and about my being a soul-mate and having a love-nest
with him...I met Mr. Williams just once in my life when he was
wandering around in the rain without his hat and coat on like a
sick dog the day before the shooting. I went up to him like any
human being would and I asked him what was the matter. And - and
he told me about being fired after being on the same job for fourteen
years. And I brought him up to my room because it was warm there...Aw
listen to me, please. I tell ya, he just sat there talking to me
all night. He never once laid a hand on me. And - and in the morning,
he went away. And I never saw him again till that day of the trial.
Sure I was his witness!...That's why you're persecuting me, because
Earl Williams treated me decent and not like an animal, and I said
so!...It's a wonder a bolt of lightning don't come down and strike
you all dead!
During Mollie's tirade with them, Hildy has returned
and begun typing her interview with Earl, while listening to their
brutish treatment of the sensitive street-walker. At the sound of
the gallows being tested again, Mollie is bereft and hysterical: "A
poor little fella that never meant nobody no harm. Sitting there
this minute with the Angel of Death beside him, and you cracking
jokes!" Hildy accompanies Mollie from the press room and closes
the door behind them to shut out their world:
Mollie: Aren't they inhuman?
Hildy: I know. They're newspapermen.
Mollie: All they've been doing is lying. All they've been doing is
writing lies...Why won't they listen to me?
Suddenly, an intense quiet and silence settles onto
the room for a long while - the press men realize that they have
indeed been unduly harsh and "inhuman." The telephone rings
to break the stillness - a call for Hildy. After more ponderous silence,
Hildy slowly re-enters the door and stands to face them and to critically
address and condemn them with an ironic description: "Gentlemen
of the Press!" Hildy races from the press room after answering
the phone - a distress-call from Bruce. Her fiancee is calling from
jail - and she rushes away to bail him out.
Sheriff Peter B. ('Pinky') Hartwell (Gene Lockhart)
arrives to distribute tickets to the early morning hanging, insisting
that he had nothing to do with the scheduling or timing of the hanging:
Murphy: Why can't you hang this guy at five o'clock
instead of seven?
Bensinger: Sure, it won't hurt you, and we'd make the city edition.
Sheriff: Oh well now, that's, that's kind of raw, Roy. After all,
I can't hang a man in his sleep just to please the newspaper.
Newsman: No, but you can reprieve him twice so the hanging's three
days before election, can't ya?
Endicott: You can run on a law and order ticket. You can do that
all right.
Sheriff: Honest boys, I had absolutely nothing to do with those reprieves.
Even the Sheriff claims that Earl Williams is a sane
man: "He's just as sane as I am."
In the jailhouse, Bruce has been detained for stealing
a watch from Diamond Louis (Bruce's mishap was set up by Walter).
Hildy rescues Bruce from jail by threatening the jailer that she
will write up the incident in the newspaper ("Well, perhaps
you'd better read the Post in the morning"). During their
taxi ride, Bruce realizes his wallet is mysteriously missing (pickpocketed
by Louis to hopefully retrieve the certified check)! As she leaves
the taxi in the front of the press room, she promises: "I'll
be down in three minutes. We're taking the next train." |