Girl in the News

Plot

When her elderly patient is poisoned, innocent nurse Anne Graham is charged with murder, but is controversially acquitted by lawyer Stephen Farringdon. With the press and public opinion against her, Anne finds it difficult to get another job. It doesn't help that her own lawyer is suspicious. Changing her name she finds employment nursing wheelchair bound Edward Bentley. When Bentley is found dead, Scotland Yard detective Bill Mather arrests Anne, but lawyer Farringdon fights again to prove her innocence.

Cast

Production

The film was based on a best selling novel by Roy Vickers. It was originally meant to star Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave, who had just appeared in The Lady Vanishes together.

It marked the film debut of Michael Hordern who had one line, during a court scene, as a junior counsel to senior counsel played by Felix Aylmer.

The film was the first of several collaborations between director Carol Reed and writer Sidney Gilliat. Gilliat later recalled:

He [Reed] seemed to me an interpreter rather than a creator; he followed the screenplay quite closely rather than bringing forth original ideas of his own. I felt he was not at all interested in The Girl in the News, which I think was a pallid job. The chief obstacle was Carol's stage background - the couldn't really believe in the screenwriter. He needed close collaboration with a writer.

Critical reception

The Radio Times called it a "workmanlike if rather transparent murder mystery"; whereas The New York Times wrote, "bring out the smelling salts, folks. Another spellbinding English thriller has come to town!" and Allmovie said, "this early Carol Reed effort tended to be dismissed or ignored by its director in later interviews. Even so, the film is a worthwhile effort, with an intricate and sometimes amusing script by Sydney Gilliat."

Radio adaptation

Girl in the News was presented on Philip Morris Playhouse 21 November 1941. The adaptation starred Joan Bennett.