Enjoyable Warner Bros. biopic about Paul Julius Reuter, the man who built the famous Reuters news service. Edward G. Robinson players Reuter. The movie covers his story from when he was using carrier pigeons up through the use of the telegraph. As is often the case with these biopics, he faces hardships and doubt from critics but perseveres. It's all pretty formulaic, I admit, but also undeniably entertaining. I was never bored. Eddie G's backed up by a fine stable of character actors, including Gene Lockhart, Otto Kruger, Nigel Bruce, and Albert Bassermann. Edna Best is the love interest and Eddie Albert plays Robinson's assistant. A solid cast. The subject matter may not lend itself to the most exciting story but they do a surprisingly good job keeping it interesting.

A Dispatch From Reuter's was the second of two biographical films that Edward G. Robinson did while at Warner Brothers. Previously those prestige roles were reserved for Paul Muni and Robinson acquits himself well both as Dr. Paul Ehrlich in Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet and now as Julius Reuter. The former film however is far better.Julius Reuter had a fascinating story to tell, but a lot was left out of this movie. For one thing, Reuter was born Jewish and converted to Christianity. I'm not sure how well that stood with Jack Warner as a Jew, but Jack Warner the film maker who did items like Confessions Of A Nazi Spy was not about to send that kind of message out in 1940 to his audience. One does wonder just what did attract him to the Reuter story.Reuter, first with the use of carrier pigeons and then with the telegraph, developed wire service reporting as we know it. Technology be it animal or human did fascinate him. He understood that news was power, fortunately if he was anything he was honest. A more unscrupulous individual might have caused great harm. One also wonders how Reuter would have viewed the internet in these days. The story begins when Reuter was a juvenile in the 1820s and ends in 1865 with Reuter a successful individual in the news business. Reuter lived another 34 years and in that time was involved in some imperial schemes, certainly in keeping with the times, but would not be viewed well today and again not a message Jack Warner wanted to convey in 1940.Edward G. Robinson is fine as the dedicated Reuter with Eddie Albert in the sidekick role and Edna Best not having to do much, but be loyal and supportive as Mrs. Reuter. It's not quite up to the level of the Muni biographical films, nor as good as Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet, but entertaining enough though it barely touches on the real Reuter.

"A Dispatch From Reuter's" pretty much has one great thing going for it, and that is Edward G. Robinson of course as Julius Reuter. Otherwise, this is semi-standard old-movie fare that can be quite dull most of the time.Reuter of course was a news pioneer, but not every successful story always makes for a good movie. Seeing guys in the 1930s and 1940s play people in the 1800s is always kind of funny. (Especially when they do the "harumph" thing when they get angry.) There's a lot of talk concerning pigeons that the viewer will get tired of pretty quickly. The characters aren't engaging and the plot is, well, boring and thin. It's a ten-minute movie stretched out to 90 minutes.Unless you are a fan of Edward G. Robinson really, which I am, this is definitely one you can certainly live without seeing.

I briefly worked for the Reuters news agency (in a very minor capacity) during the Cold War, so I was curious to see the film 'This Man Reuter', which purports to be a biopic of Paul Julius Reuter. I knew almost nothing about the agency's founder before I saw this film ... and now that I've seen it, I still know almost nothing about him. How much of this movie is true? I get the impression that very little of it is.The good news first: this is an extremely well-made Warner Brothers 'prestige' picture, expertly directed by the great William Dieterle and splendidly photographed by the legendary James Wong Howe. There are some fine montage sequences (by Don Siegel?), easily up to this studio's standard. (Warners always had the best montages.) There's a good supporting cast, and Edward G Robinson gives conviction and humanity to the leading role. I was even pleased to see a brief appearance by former silent-film comedian George Ovey.The bad news: in spite of all of the above, I still find myself wondering how much of this actually happened. We see Reuter (Robinson) in the mid-19th century, as a man obsessed with acquiring information and disseminating it as rapidly as possible. He begins by using a telegraph and carrier pigeons to collect the stock-market quotations, selling the information to a cartel of brokers. (Ovey appears during this pigeon sequence.) There's an amusing scene with Gene Lockhart as a broker who schemes to get one jump ahead of his rivals, and who is promptly outsmarted by Robinson. Lockhart was one of those character actors whom audiences liked to see humiliated and outsmarted. (Another such was Walter Catlett.) Lockhart is in good form here, but I suspect that he's portraying a fictional character.Another fictional character here, surely, is the hero's buddy Max, portrayed by Eddie Albert. I've always liked Albert and regretted that he never really clicked in films: he was typecast as the hero's earnest pal, and hardly got a chance to transcend that niche: he certainly doesn't transcend it here. I suspect that Jack Warner inserted the handsome Albert into this film as an attraction for female movie-goers who mightn't want to look at Edward G Robinson.SPOILERS COMING NOW. Inevitably, Reuter's empire prospers ... and here comes a climax which I well and truly suspect is Hollywood fiction. It's now April 1865, and there's still no transatlantic telegraph cable to replace the one that broke in 1858. With the Civil War raging in the U.S.A., Reuter has a rival in London who's receiving transatlantic despatches faster than Reuter can get them. Reuter comes up with a Heath Robinson system to shave a few minutes off his rival's time, by dropping messages overboard as ships reach the Irish coast, trusting them to wash ashore and be retrieved, then cabling the gen to London. Will Reuter's method work?Astoundingly, the very FIRST message that Reuter receives by this method is the assassination of Lincoln. (Which we see in one of the montages.) Is this true? Was the news of Lincoln's assassination indeed Reuter's first transatlantic despatch ... or merely his first major scoop? (Another big scoop -- the end of America's Civil War -- occurred only a few days before Lincoln's assassination, yet we get no mention of that here.) 'This Man Reuter' is a very enjoyable film, of the sort they don't make any more, but it has a strong aroma of Hollywood hokum rather than fact. I wish I knew how much of this movie was accurate. Purely for its entertainment value, I'll rate it 7 out of 10.