A Night for Crime

Film starring Glenda Farrell, Lyle Talbot, and an actress I knew personally, Lina Basquette. And Lina's story outdid anything that could be in a movie. But I digress.

During a wartime blackout, a woman is murdered. Susan Cooper, a fast-talking girl reporter, endeavors to solve the case, to the consternation of the police department. Not only has she done this before, but she's been more successful.

Susan's beau (Talbot) is a publicist on a film starring a difficult actress, Mona Harrison, who disappears and then is found dead. So the plot thickens and the film is threatened.

Fun B movie with Glenda Farrell her usual wisecracking and snappy self.

Lina Basquette was a child star in silents who married Sam Warner (the first of her 9 husbands) in 1925. They had one child. When Sam died in 1927, the Warner family took the baby away from her. She didn't see her daughter again for 30 years.

She worked for DeMille and Frank Capra, but eventually wound up in B westerns. Lina also had a big affair with Jack Dempsey. She retired from films and bred great danes and judged in dog shows. She made a film in 1991 and was a guest speaker at Cinecom. She died at 87. Her half-sister is Marge Champion. She was a fascinating woman and looked wonderful until she died.

One more piece of Lina trivia (she claimed Hitler made a pass at her, but that's for another day) - she said that Joe Kennedy and others entered the film business to drive out the Jews. There was a lot of antisemitism. On the night Sam (a redhead) negotiated for the Vitaphone license, he asked Lina to wear her Catholic cross.