The Famous Ferguson Case

Director: Lloyd Bacon Lloyd Bacon

Overview

Wealthy industrialist George M. Ferguson (Purnell Pratt) is murdered and his wife (Vivienne Osborne) left bound and gagged in their summer home in the tiny upstate New York hamlet of Cornwall. Rumors quickly start going through the town -- many people don't know what to make of Mrs. Ferguson's claim that a pair of burglars attacked them, shot her husband, and stole her jewelry, especially as there have already been rumors of an affair between Mrs. Ferguson and bank employee Judd Brooks (Leon Ames). But the real trouble starts when a pack of reporters from New York City descend on the town. Some of them, led by veteran journalist Martin Collins (Grant Mitchell), are there to report the facts as they find them -- but another more aggressive bunch, led by smooth-talking Bob Parke (Kenneth Thompson), are prepared to report any rumor, no matter how scurrilous, far-fetched, or unsupported by facts it might be, as a new development. They enlist the aid of the two employees from the local paper, Bruce Foster (Tom Brown) and Toni Martin (Adrienne Dore), into their efforts. And soon Bob is corrupting wide-eyed, ambitious Toni -- who has always wanted to leave Cornwall for New York City -- with drinks and romance, much to the chagrin of his one-time paramour Maizie Dickson (Joan Blondell). Maizie, who is also a reporter, has been around the block and knows where Bob will leave Toni when he gets bored with her. The scandal-sheet reporters eventually persuade the weak-willed local prosecutor (Clarence H. Wilson) to arrest Brooks as a material witness -- an event that causes the man's pregnant wife to faint -- and bring murder charges against Mrs. Ferguson. Now the press sharks have a field day, trumpeting every nasty rumor they can pump up into a headline. Meanwhile, Bruce Foster, following the advice of Martin Collins, starts digging on his own into the case. The trial proceeds to the point where the jury is about to start deliberating when the real facts emerge, turning the whole town and the visiting press corps upside down, but not before events destroy one family and nearly wreck the town.

Product Details

Release Date:	05/01/2018
UPC:	0888574657529
Original Release:	1932
Source:	Warner Archives
Language:	English
Time:	1:14:00
Sales rank:	48,918

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Joan Blondell	Maizie Dickson
Tom Brown	Bruce Foster
Adrienne Dore	Tony Martin
Walter Miller	Cedric Works
Leslie Fenton	Perrin
Vivienne Osborne	Mrs. Marcia Ferguson
J. Carrol Naish	Claude Wright
Purnell Pratt	George M. Ferguson
Kenneth Thomson	Bob Parks,Bob Parks
Grant Mitchell	Martin Collins
Leon Ames	Judd Brooks
Clarence Wilson	County Attorney,County Attorney
Bert Hanlon	Eddie Klein
Mike Donlin	Photographer
Russell Hopton	Rusty Calahan
Miriam Seegar	Mrs. Brooks
Willard Robertson	Sheriff
George Meeker	Jigger Bolton
Russell Simpson	Craig
Frederick Burton	Bridges
Spencer Charters	Fire Chief
Oscar Apfel	Actor
George MacFarlane	Actor
William Burress	Actor
George Chandler	Actor

Technical Credits

Courtney Terrett

Harvey Thew

Lloyd Bacon	Director
Courtney Terrett	Screenwriter
Harvey Thew	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

The Famous Ferguson Case is a very peculiar movie, no matter how one looks at it. For starters, there's the billing and the structure -- based on the credits, the film's two nominal stars are Joan Blondell and Grant Mitchell (?!), yet neither one shows up on-screen until more than 20 minutes into the picture; and Mitchell's character actually appears a few minutes before Blondell's, who then disappears for another 10 minutes or so. And then there's that cautionary opening, presented with internal newspaper-style editing, warning the audience of the perfidious nature of some members of the press corps (circa 1932). And there's the script, which aims its barbs at both small-town provincialism and big-city cynicism in equal measure -- this little 74 minute drama/mystery wants to be a lot of things, including a message picture along the lines of I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang and Cabin In The Cotton, a mystery-thriller, a romantic drama, a social critique, and an old-style country/city conflict story. Principal writers Courtney Terrett and Harvey F. Thew have fired what amounts to a load of thematic buckshot that spreads out in all directions, and with surprising effectiveness -- the central story, of a small, upstate New York town's social fabric and justice system corrupted and destroyed, along with several lives, by unscrupulous big city newspapermen, is never far from the center of the film; but the tale of two would-be lovers parted by that corrupting influence is just as central to the tale. And the period details are fascinating, as the honest but impressionable newspaperwoman played by Adrienne Dore looks longingly at the pages of Vogue, pondering what she would like to do in New York, and is brought to ruin, personal and professional, by the influence of these visitors from that city, while her one-time paramour Bruce Foster (Tom Brown) parts with her in every way possible in the same circumstances. The story weaves those two tales together very successfully if a bit heavy-handedly, with Joan Blondell and Grant Mitchell -- the supposed stars of the film -- providing a kind of Greek chorus to the proceedings. The entire movie plays like a more didactic cousin to Mervyn LeRoy's Five Star Final (made at the same studio a year earlier), with less energy but a bigger array of targets in its sights. It might not be quite as piercing as the earlier film, but it's well worth a look, even eight decades later, and most of what it has to say about journalism is even more relevant in the internet era than it was in 1932.

All Movie Guide - Bruce Eder