Category Archives: comedy

“Storm in a Teacup” crossed Atlantic

Posted on December 14, 2012 by

The full-length 1937 film “Storm in a Teacup” is on YouTube and at the Internet Archive, with Rex Harrison as a crusading young journalist and Vivien Leigh as the beautiful daughter of the smalltown dictator he crusades against. The 1948 … Continue reading →

Posted in 1940s, adaptations, comedy, international, journalism | Leave a comment

Reporter assaulted, editor insensitive, but she makes him dinner

Posted on January 30, 2012 by

My headline is about as strange as the introduction to this premier episode of “Bright Star,” which billed it as a genre-crossing “gay new exciting comedy adventure.” You should know this first episode, “The Oil Swindle,” was broadcast in 1952, … Continue reading →

Posted in 1950s, comedy, editors, Hollywood, newspapers, publishers, reporters, romance, women | Leave a comment

Journalism students cause trouble

Posted on November 3, 2011 by

My “Portrayals of the Journalist” class eventually will watch the 1958 Clark Gable and Doris Day film “Teacher’s Pet,” in which a young journalism professor spars with a tough city editor who invades her class to expose what a waste … Continue reading →

Posted in 1950s, comedy, editors, movies, teaching, women | 1 Comment

Philadelphia wasn’t really the story, but radio kept telling it

Posted on August 13, 2011 by

While not exactly a “journalism procedural,” the romantic comedy The Philadelphia Story does feature a reporter and photographer on the trail of a high-society wedding — with the reporter literally getting in over his head. (In the swimming pool, by … Continue reading →

Posted in 1940s, comedy, journalism, magazines, movies, newspapers, photographer, reporting, romance, sensationalism | Leave a comment

Slightly Dangerous: When a newspaper deludes itself and readers

Posted on July 18, 2011 by

MGM Theater of the Air didn’t get the original movie cast for its 1950 radio production of the screwball comedy Slightly Dangerous, but Celeste Holm made a charming Peggy Evans (or “Miss X”) — a lunch-counter waitress so bored with … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptations, comedy, ethics, movies, newspapers, romance | Leave a comment