'The Finger Points' DVD: Clark Gable Tells Crooked Reporter That He Does Give A Damn

The Warner Archive February 7, 2018 DVD release of the 1931 pre-Code pulp fiction crime drama "The Finger Points" shows that "King Kong" is not the only time that Fay Wray is caught in a celluloid jam. This time she plays Lois Lane style girl reporter Marcia Collins, who is the object of the affection of two male colleagues.

Breckinridge "Breck" Lee is a big fish in the small pond of Savannah whose work there nets (pun intended) him a job on a larger Chicago newspaper. He is pure mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent on arriving on a train probably with Georgia clay still on the bottom of his shoe. Richard Baethelmess who plays Lee adequately is Hollywood royalty to get above the title billing in "Finger" and other films that include "The Cabin in the Cotton" and "The Noose."

Veteran reporter Charlie "Breezy" Russell (Regis Toomey) takes the new kid under his wing and has him tag along as he pursues Collins.

The reality check for Lee begins when he suffers a back alley beating after refusing a payoff to not write a story that leads to a police raid of a speakeasy. His $35/week salary being inadequate to pay his medical bills and his employer refusing to pick up the tab for that work-related expense begins the seduction of Lee to the dark side.

Lee then starts working both sides of the street by beginning to accept money from gangsters in exchange for controlling how his paper covers reports of illegal activity.

Clark Gable literally and figuratively enters the picture as middle-man gangster Louis Blanco; he collects the hush money from his associates and passes along a percentage to Lee. It is not surprising that competing forms of greed play a role in the end of that not-so-beautiful friendship.

The climax (no pun intended) commences with Breck committed to leaving the evils of the big city behind and starting over with his girl. However, his extra-legal activities threaten that exit strategy.

The events of the final 15 minutes of "Finger" leads to a wonderfully cynical ending that can be described as "it was beauty killed the beast."

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