Five Star Final

Five Star Final is a 1931 American PreCode film about crime and the excesses of tabloid journalism. The picture was written by Robert Lord and Byron Morgan from the play of the same name by Louis Weitzenkorn, directed by Mervyn LeRoy, starring Edward G. Robinson, and featuring H. B. Warner, Marian Marsh, Oscar Apfel, Aline MacMahon, Frances Starr, Ona Munson, and Boris Karloff.

Joseph W. Randall Edward G. Robinson, the city editor of a tabloid newspaper, reluctantly agrees when publisher Bernard Hinchecliffe Oscar Apfel plans to boost circulation with a restrospective series on a 20yearold murder and scandal, involving a secretary, Nancy Voorhees Frances Starr, who shot the man who got her pregnant and then refused to marry her. Nancy is now married to Michael Townsend H. B. Warner, an upstanding member of society, and has a daughter, Jenny Marian Marsh, about to marry the son of a socially prominent family, Philip Weeks Anthony Bushell. She reacts with horror at the renewed interest in the scandal she had put behind her.To dig up dirt about Nancy, Randall assigns an unscrupulous reporter, Reverend T. Vernon Isopod Boris Karloff, who masquerades as a minister and wins the confidence of the brides parents on the eve of the wedding. They confess to him their concerns that Nancys past will come out, and he uses their information to write a story that Randall prints. Nancy tries get Randall to back away from the story, but when he refuses she kills herself, as does her husband shortly afterwards. Phillips parents pressure him to call off the wedding to Nancys daughter Jenny, but he refuses and stands up to them. An enraged Jenny threatens Randall at gun point, attempting to force him to take responsibility for the deaths of her mother and father, but Philip shows up and calms her down. A guilty Randall denounces Hinchecliffe as a hypocrite and decides to quit the paper, as does his secretary Miss Taylor Aline MacMahon, whos been in love with him for years. ........

Source: Wikipedia