Average programmer to fill the bottom of a double bill with Jeffrey Lynn his usual dull blank slate in the lead. He actually gives the film's worst performance not helping the meager story in the least. Somehow they managed to wrangle Oscar winner Donald Crisp into a brief appearance, his last on screen work for three years-of course if this was the quality of stuff being offered no wonder he took a break, he's far better than this run of the mill junk deserves. The real interest and the only reason the film is sought out today is for the presence in the cast of Marilyn Monroe and to a much lesser extent Gilligan's Island's Skipper, Alan Hale Jr. Marilyn very much on the way up, her billing is far more prominent than the small part she plays would rate for anyone else, would play a few more minor roles like this throughout 1951. Within the year though she would be a minor star and within two a superstar permanently moving beyond this kind of routine assignment. She looks beautiful and handles the minimal demands of her secretary role well enough but she has a total of no more than five minutes screen time.Strictly for those who are interested in seeing all of Marilyn's work, no matter how minor.

The cover of this DVD caught my eye as I was walking by the bargain bin. Being a Marilyn fan I was caught by the large "Starring Marilyn Monroe" on the cover along with an equally large photo of a young Marilyn. I decided for $3.99 it was worth buying.I'm not sure if this constitutes a "spoiler" or not, but Marilyn is in 3 scenes and speaks 3 1/2 (maybe 4) lines of dialog. Not exactly what I'd call a "starring" role. But then, she is wearing tight sweaters in her scenes, so I wasn't totally disappointed (there, I said it).It was also nice seeing The Skipper (Alan Hale Jr.) wearing something other then a blue shirt and a captain's hat.Being only about an hour long (it was the first half of a double feature, the other half being a James Cagney film), I didn't feel like I had wasted time seeing the movie. In fact, the story really wasn't that bad, the packaging was just a little misleading.

I found this a quite watchable little movie, with a moping Marilyn Monroe as „padding material". It features a pocket sized Citizen Kane and a dramatic incident which reminded me of Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter.Shot synposis: An unexperienced young man without influence who got elected senator to his state's legislature solely because of his war record, is defeated by the son of a local entrepreneur. He returns to his home town, gets hold of a newspaper (owned by his uncle) and tries to „nail" the big enterprise run by the father of the new senator in that town. The issues are environmental pollution and high profits for the owners. He doesn't succeed in getting any leverage to nail the enterprise but that does not weaken his grim determination. Then his kid sister gets trapped in a caved in mine shaft during a school excursion led by the former senator's estranged fiancée (solid performance by Marjorie Reynolds). The entrepreneur personally pilots the plane with the severely injured girl to the state capital. The girl gets well, the former senator is reformed ... and all's well that ends well.Its easy to see that Home Town Story was made for propaganda purposes. Big business is presented as something good and powered by altruism and patriotism (and a little hunger for more profit). The main character's motive is personal frustration, and yet he wants to make his newspaper spicier and more appealing for a wider public. He is an entrepreneur, too, and sees his revenge binge as a tactic for improvement. After some venomous editorials the entrepreneur visits the former senator in the newspaper building and tries to speak some sense into him. His speech and demeanor present the entrepreneur as a calm, even minded man who is open to discussions, it is a really good and convincing performance. He says, among other things, that his father in the Old Country worked from dawn to dusk, dying at 40 as an old man, whereas he himself is 60 already and feeling in tiptop shape. Today we laugh about stuff like that on both sides of the Atlantic, however, as far as propaganda goes, I've seen and heard worse.There are weird loose ends in this movie. It is made clear that the accident occurs because two workers of the big enterprise (we're always talking about the same one) were too lazy to repair a danger sign that had fallen down. So the crew of the school bus did not see it. I guess in the US of today this would be a classic case for a damage claim – as demonstrated in the aforementioned movie The Sweet Hereafter. In this movie the entrepreneur by piloting his private plane with the injured kid atones for everything that might have gone wrong, and no one investigates the incident any further. Tempi passati! Another reviewer called this an awful movie. I do not agree, I think especially the accident and the ensuing rescue operation are exceptionally well edited, probably with very little material to work with. The whole episode has a very modern feel and is really suspenseful.

There are several problems with this movie. There is not much of a plot. The dialogs leaves a lot to be desired. The minor characters are not well developed or defined. And the pace is snail like. However, the main problem I have with this story is that the lead character, Blake Washburn, is not even close to being a likable fellow. While I understand he was supposed to be pushy, driven and opinionated, the plain fact is that he was just a Jackass. (Can I say that?) As a result, it is a real stretch to expect the audience to care about him. There is an accident involving his little sister, but we have not spent enough time with her to get to know and like her and you have to like before you can care. We care about this little girl's plight, but only because she is a child - any child would solicit the same response. Do we really care it was his sister? I will not say the movie totally sucked, but I will say it left me unmoved and empty. There were, however, two performances that worked Alan Hale Jr. gave a pretty good performance as ace reporter and friend of Washburn, as if this guy could really have a friend. Donald Crisp gave the best performance of the lot as industrialist John MacFarland who displayed a even balance of quiet ambition, intellect, drive and humanity to stand out from all the other characters even though he did not really have that much screen time.