Good start to the B series about the fast-talking, gutsy, and snoopy lady reporter, a forerunner to Lois Lane. It has a brisk pace and a fun cast of characters. This first entry deals with the murder of a guy who just bought a popular nightclub. Reporter Torchy Blane (Glenda Farrell) and her detective boyfriend Steve McBride (Barton MacLane) set out to solve the case, together and in spite of each other.Farrell and MacLane are both terrific in parts well-suited to their particular talents. Jane Wyman, who would later play the role of Torchy herself, has a small part here as a gabby hatcheck girl. Good support from Addison Richards, Tom Kennedy, Wini Shaw, Robert Paige, Joseph Crehan, and Charlotte Wynters (the future Mrs. Barton MacLane). If you're a fan of B's from back in the day, or just a fan of the great Glenda Farrell, you should find a lot to like here.

....that's Glenda Farrell!! Who would have thought, seeing her in "Little Caesar", that only a few years later she would be wise cracking with the best (hey! she was the best!!) in a series of snappy Warners comedies - even when they weren't that snappy she was out there giving her best!! When she was given the role of Torchy Blane in "Smart Blonde" she was determined to make her characterization real and not an exaggerated comedy type. So she started to observe women reporters and found them "young, intelligent and refined" and succeeded in bringing those qualities to her role.After getting the scoop about a sporting takeover by "Tiny" Torgenson, Torchy Blane, ace reporter for "The Morning Herald" is an eyewitness to his murder!!! Also at the train station is songbird Dolly Ireland (Winifred Shaw) who is trying to keep a belligerent bodyguard, Chuck, from causing a scene. They are both connected with Mularky (Addison Richards), the gentleman who is in the middle of selling his sporting interests to Torgenson. Dolly is a singer at his nightclub, who was once in love with him before he took up with a Boston society dame and Chuck is worried because he thinks that if Mularky sells his sporting interests he will be out of a job.Keeping the story snappy is the fast and quick witted banter between Torchy and the "light of her life" Lt. Steve McBride (Barton Maclaine who, as William Everson commented "why should he talk when shouting will do"). They have a great screen chemistry, Maclaine was born for these gruff comic roles. Mularky initially comes across as a man who just wants to retire with his high society bride but becomes increasingly agitated as the movie progresses - can he be protecting someone?? and who is Marcia's very protective brother, who never seems to leave her side??? Time will tell.This is a very fast paced reporter Vs detective movie (no need to say who wins) and comes in at just under an hour. An almost unrecognisable Jane Wyman appears as Dixie, the hat check girl.

"Smart Blonde,' an above-average entry in the very popular "Torchy Blaine" B-film series about the feisty girl reporter who inspired the Lois Lane character, may be guilty of the same subconscious prejudice that pervaded many of the films of the Thirties.Although it is otherwise a wonderfully entertaining low-budget mystery, there is an isolated scene where tough guy cop Steve McBride, Torchy's boyfriend, insists that she remain in a locked car after he leaves her because they're in a "rat-hole" of a neighborhood. Glenda Farrell's Torchy is an especially aggressive and brassy professional in the typical fashion of other 1930s Warner heroines like Joan Blondell and Bette Davis, and she usually is confidently resourceful enough to strike out on her own in pursuit of a story in any circumstance.Four individuals are then shown in the street of that "rat-hole" neighborhood The first is an African-American aimlessly loitering by leaning against the wall of the building where Steve enters. The second is an Orthodox Jewish-American with beard, glasses, and hat walking past the door. The third is a Chinese-American who walks past Torchy in her car and suspiciously eyes her. The fourth is in the far background and not clearly identifiable as a ethnic type."Smart Blonde" was nothing more pretentious than any standard, assembly line programmer of the period. The "rat-hole" neighborhood was meant to suggest an area that the usually plucky and independent Torchy should be wary of. Although it's doubtful that any overt racism was intended, it's notable that the signifiers of the bad neighborhood are three readily identifiable minority types.Director Frank MacDonald was a workmanlike studio journeyman who told stories as quickly and efficiently as possible. The source material was one of the Kennedy and McBride stories by Frederick Lewis Nebel and went through six different Warner staff writers, emerging as assembly line product.Kennedy, the reporter half of the crime-fighting duo, was a male alcoholic in the original stories, so the problems of presenting drunks heroically under the newly-implemented motion picture code was easily solved by transforming him into the sober, female Torchy Blaine, whose only vice was a good sirloin steak. That change eliminated the problem while maintaining tensions in the relationship.It should be noted that pulp crime fiction writer Nebel(under the name Brett Halliday) was also the creator of another popular screen detective, Michael Shayne, portrayed by Lloyd Nolan in seven films for Fox in the Forties. Given the alterations of both characters by the studios only confirmed Nebel's contempt of Hollywood.

Glenda Farrell originates the role of Torchy Blain, a fast-talking wise-cracking reporter who will do anything for a scoop, including using her amiable lieutenant boyfriend to sneak into crime scenes, steal clues from the police, and even bully suspects into making false statements to find the real culprit. Farrell has a filmography a mile long, usually playing a second-fiddle gold diggers and hard-luck girls, so it's nice to see this forgotten actress take the lead in a role that is smart and funny. Lasting only an hour, SMART BLONDE is one of those "B" movies that was shown before the main feature, so don't expect deep characters or an intricate mystery, but Farrell tears through the script at lightning speed, trading quips and unraveling a murder cover-up. Barton MacLane as her lieutenant boyfriend McBride is a sturdy and likable foil -- for once the cops aren't entirely stupid. Despite some shamefully racist moments, the Torchy Blane series of films are overall very satisfying and fun. They should be remembered in the same pre-war vein as HIS GIRL Friday, where a woman could be every bit as smart and career-driven as a man. Oddly enough, Farrell played an identical character in the horror classic MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM (1933) but lost top billing to Fay Wray.