Is My Face Red?
Directed by William A. Seiter
Written by Casey Robinson and Ban Markson from a play by Markson and Allen Rivkin
1932/US
RKO Radio Pictures
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental
Morning Gazette Telephone Operator: And get the lead out of my WHAT?… oh, Mister Poster!
OK newspaper movie with a smackable performance by Ricardo Cortez as an unscrupulous gossip columnist.
William Poster (Cortez) plays a cocksure and obnoxious Walter Winchell-style gossip columnist who relishes digging up the most embarrassing dirt on famous names. He is also quite a playboy. For some reason, chorus girl Peggy Bannon (Helen Twelvetrees) has remained engaged to him for five years and is a source of a lot of juicy tips for his column. Eventually, Cortez takes a huge risk spilling the beans on Sidney Toler, an Italian restaurant owning mafioso. He also steps out on Peggy with heiress Mildred Huntington (Jill Esmond).
My favorite parts were the scenes with Zasu Pitts as the paper’s switchboard operator. Ricardo grins a lot but his character is really unlikeable. I like him as a romantic lead, but a comedian he is not. Twelvetrees has not let me down yet.
