Blondes at Work (1938) *** (out of 4) Fun fourth entry to the series has Torchy Blane (Gelnda Farrell) finding news ways to get sources even when her fiancé Lt. McBride (Barton MacLane) has made it clear he won't be giving her any scoops. She gets on a hot murder case and is able to track down the suspect but things don't go as planned. BLONDES AT WORK is another fine film in the series and I'm sure fans are really going to enjoy it even though Blane is actually somewhat a villain here. The film basically has the police trying to keep the case quiet so that they can locate the killer but Torchy, obviously just thinking of her stories, manages to keep messing up the case. I don't think even fans will agree with the way she gets her news here and the ending, which I won't ruin, is actually quite fitting. As with the previous film, this one here benefits from a pretty good story that has a couple nice twists and of course two nice leads to carry us through it. Farrell is certainly at the top of her game here as she perfectly works her comic timing. MacLane is also good in his supporting bit but it's Tom Kennedy who steals the film as the dimwit who wants to be a poet. Rosella Towne is also good in her role. The film runs a fast-paced 63-minutes and contains enough entertainment to keeps fans interesting. Bette Davis fans will probably recognize this story as it borrows quite heavily from FRONT PAGE WOMAN.

Reporter Torchy Blane is getting all the scoops, and Captain McTavish is mad. He thinks Torchy's fiancé, Lieutenant McBride, is giving her inside police information. The rival newspaper's editor "wants to know if we're running the police department for the taxpayers or for Torchy Blane." McBride ought to keep her in line!Glenda Farrell as Torchy is funnier than ever in this fast-moving farce with a bit of mystery tossed in. Torchy plays innocent when asked where she's getting her leads ("Oh, I don't know, those things just seem to come to me. I told you I was psychic") but has soon tracked a missing businessman to a hotel room where someone has been stabbed. Inside info or no, Torchy is consistently a step quicker than the cops. Barton McLane is a good sport as the generally bewildered Lieutenant McBride; the character is solid enough but essentially a straight man for Torchy and for police chauffeur Gahagan. Tom Kennedy is back as poetry-loving cop Gahagan and this time around he's keeping a diary—for "postererity," he says. He lets Torchy in on the secret diary; she asks if he has a good hiding place for it and encourages him to keep track of every little thing his boss McBride does….The plot has a few thin spots. Could you really trace a person that easily from a single smudge of lipstick on a handkerchief? The ending is rather abrupt as well, wrapping things up in an awful hurry. However, such issues hardly matter since plot here is always secondary to the goofy character interplay. The mystery, such as it is, involves a disappearance and murder but is little more than a backdrop for the comic story of Torchy and her sources.Not much suspense but lots of fun…. Farrell especially—hilarious and cute—appears to be having a ball.

After increased pressure from Steve's superior, he and Torchy decide to part ways for a while, professionally speaking: each one will go on doing his job without the other one's help. When a department store owner is found stabbed to death, Steve is doubly puzzled: who killed him, and how does Torchy still manage to get all those inside scoops about the case? Not as fresh as the first two entries, but better than "The Adventurous Blonde", "Blondes At Work" is exceptionally slow-moving (it certainly feels longer than an hour), and not much of a mystery either, but it does have some standout moments of Torchy outwitting her opposition, and an ending that's both unexpected and sweet. ** out of 4.

This film begins with Torchy and her fiancé, Lt. McBride, having an argument. It seems he is once again getting a lot of pressure from his boss to stop giving Torchy inside information about the cases he's working on at the time. That's because she's a reporter and the reporters from other papers are complaining about this. This has been an ongoing complaint in this detective series. Tired of constantly hearing these complaints, McBride bans Torchy from coming on any more cases. This doesn't stop her, as she uses every trick she can to spy on him! When the murder of a department store owner occurs, she manages to find out before any of the other reporters. So it seems that even without McBride's help, she still gets the scoop again and again.This film starts off well. However, it sure ended poorly. After spending much of the film to convict a guy of murder, the trial is shown in depth. So far so good. However, after all this and the guy being found guilty, in the last three minutes, as Torchy is sitting in jail (it's a long story), McBride shows up and announces that the real killer just confessed! So, they didn't show the confession but just tacked it on at the end! How cheesy. This slapped on ending sure helped make this movie end with a whimper, not much of a bang--making it a rather poor addition to the series.By the way, in one scene, Lt. McBride showed a handkerchief to a lady at a cosmetics counter so she could identify the type and brand of lipstick. The blonde lady barely even looked at it and went on and on about the exact lipstick it was. This was hard to believe, but the director should have at least told her to spend more than .003 of a second examining it!