-30- (1959) is a
story of the gritty newspaper game played out entirely in the newsroom. Unlike the spirited hijinks of The Front Page where a fugitive is
hidden in a roll top desk and the smart aleck newshounds will do just about
anything for a story, this movie is more mature, more world-weary, more
soul-searching, and presents the journalists in a much more human light of both
idealism and self-doubt.
Jack Webb, who directed and produced the movie, stars as the
editor-in-chief, who, refreshingly, is not the usual barking kind of editor we
see in movies about newspapermen.
He’s
tough, cunning, but quiet, with a sense of humor and a wellspring of tenderness
that is borne of daily reporting on an often unpleasant world, and from being
haunted by his own past personal tragedy.
The barking in this film is left to William Conrad, an
editor whose war cry of, “Boy!” refers to the gang of 20-something copyboys on
staff always looking for their big break as journalists, but always reduced to
menial gofers.
His chief irritant is
David Nelson, who just can’t seem to please his boss. Much of the film’s wry humor comes from the
clashing in this newsroom full of oddball personalities: Richard Deacon, the
frustrated staff artist whose talent and art education is wasted on retouching photos. Another editor who is assigned to both real
estate and religion, wishes he could cover the weather, and Jack Webb decides
to let him do all three, proclaiming him editor of heaven and earth.
Howard McNear aka Floyd the Barber shows up, too, as an editor, and it's neat the Mr. Webb has casted so many movie lesser knowns and bit players for featured roles in this film.
We have Louise Lorimer at the rewrite desk, an old vet of
the paper, who follows on teletype the news of her grandson’s Air Force test
flight, and Nancy Valentine, stuck doing obits, who wants her big chance at a
story.
We see there are no restrictions on the ladies in this newsroom, as career opportunities in journalism have been a gateway to women since the days Nellie Bly was working as an investigative reporter in 19
th century.
Jack Webb is supportive of the gals, and helps Nancy Valentine to get her big break when a big story happens.
They work the evening shift, preparing the morning
paper. The newsroom never closes in
these days of big-city dailies that had both morning and afternoon papers, and
any number of “extras” as the events permitted.
In 1959, print journalism was at a crossroads, and we see it here. When the big story happens, they are
competing with the new television media, and William Conrad jokingly laments,
“Oh, why didn’t we all get together and stamp out TV when there was still
time?”
Towards the end of the movie, when the paper goes to press, we can hear the hum of the huge presses rolling on a floor below. We are past the days of Linotype
in the composing room, but on the desks and light tables in the newsroom we see
this is still an era of paste-up and layout, literally.
(This era continued, for me at least, into
the 1980s, and it is a kick to see them work with blue pencil and rulers and
rubber cement, and to crop photos, literally, by drawing margins, where
figuring out column inches and percentages was done with math.)
There are other, less technical touches to this film that
endear the viewer to this world of second-shift newspapermen and women. The way William Conrad uses a piece of typing
paper to wipe yesterday’s grounds out his small electric coffee percolator at
the beginning of his shift, berating David Nelson, who stands before him with a
tray of paper cups of water so Conrad can refill his pot. I like the sweater vests, and the editor
wearing the green eyeshade he probably put on with pride in his youth and never
took it off.
I like the back of the swivel desk chair we see behind
Conrad with somebody’s name written on it, as if the owner was tired of having
it swiped.
There is also the omnipresent rain, like the Day of
Judgment. We see it out the window over
Jack Webb’s shoulder as he looks toward the neon sign of the diner across the
street. We hear it, and everybody who
comes into the office is drenched. The
rain also plays an ominous role in the big story for this evening.
A little girl has crawled into an open storm drain.
She is lost somewhere in the sewer tunnels
below the street, and the sewers are filling rapidly with the unrelenting
rain.
It had been a slow news night, but
nobody on staff is jumping for joy over this one.
They all approach the story with knots in
their stomachs, but with a steely resolve to be emotionless.
In a sense, the same kind of “procedural” style Jack Webb
used in his Dragnet series is employed
here, as the movie shows us the nuts and bolts of what it takes to put out a
newspaper edition, and here and there reminds us that there are people
involved. Their stories are subordinate
to the Big Story, and this is the deal they entered into when they signed on to
this kind of work. So subordinate to the
news are their personal lives that often when they engage in serious personal
conversations with each other, their backs are to us, as if they cannot admit
to us they have feelings.
But we do get a peek at a few of their personal stories.
Louise Lorimer’s grandson’s test flight turns
to tragedy.
She keeps working through
her shift to avoid going home alone to her empty apartment.
Eventually, we see she does not go home
alone—Nancy Valentine takes her home to her apartment; the bonding of the sorority
of young and old “girl reporters.”
Jack Webb, especially torn by the Big Story, ponders, “What
those parents must be going through. At
least with me, it was all over before they told me.” Here is his past tragedy. His wife and son were killed some years
previously, and he is not through grieving.
This night will bring his single greatest challenge. His new wife of three years, played by
Whitney Blake, wants to adopt a little boy.
At first Webb agreed, and the two-year process of adoption and the
search for a child is over. She’s found
a little boy, but now Jack has cold feet.
He’s afraid to commit his heart to another child.
“The Speech” is given to William Conrad, as he bawls out David Nelson
and another copyboy for wanting to quit.
His soliloquy, as he brandishes a rolled up sample of their life’s
blood, is capped with, “It only cost ten cents, but if you only read the comic
section or the want ads, it’s still the best buy for your money in the world.”
Despite the wisecracks and the cynicism, these are closet
idealists who dream big and hurt deeply.
These were the days when the newspaper was the window to the
world, something the whole family read, when people had personal loyalties to
certain papers, and when a newspaper could be so much the conscience of a
community that in later days when they began to close down, the community
mourned. When Jack Webb tears out the
planned front page and inserts a new lead story, 72-point heading, with a huge
photo of the storm drain, its open jaws threatening to eat us all, he warns the
children readers to stay away from this awful thing. The newspaper is for the whole family to read
and discuss.
Nancy Valentine pulls off a coup by talking
to the family and getting photos.
She
has earned their trust.
Richard Deacon
puts his art skills to work, finally, by drawing an illustration of the sewer
system that is not only informative for the readers, but helpful to the news
staff.
These people don’t just want to
report on another dead body, they want to find that kid, and flesh out where
and when and why and how.
Then through the night we get reports of injured rescue
workers and it does not look good for the missing little girl.
Spoilers here. Go to
the water cooler for a minute if you don’t want to know.
The reporter on scene calls in, and it goes to Louise
Lorimer, wearing her headphones to type, hunt-and-peck style, the rewrite.
(In these days, you didn’t automatically get
a byline; you had to earn it.
Reporters
with bylines were rock stars.) She listens and types, and Jack Webb listens on the other line. The staff looks up from their work, apprehensively.
The girl is saved.
The newsroom is quiet, only a sigh of relief and big smiles, and a few
tears as one fellow mops his face with his handkerchief.
Whitney Blake brings the little boy she wants to adopt to the newsroom to meet Jack. He’s still
reticent to go through with it, but when the boy wanders into his office and
asks what the noise is—he hears the loud presses running—Jack Webb is faced
with his greatest nightmare: the prospect of loving another child.
In a sweet finale, Jack’s emotions are, again,
subjugated to the newsroom. It is his
point of reference for everything. He
asks the boy, “Don’t you know what that is?”
The boy, a little scared, shakes his head.
“They’re printing the funny papers,” he says reassuringly.
The little boy has wondered into the magical
land where the funny papers come from!
Webb
reduces the magnitude of the work and sorrow, tragedy-dwelling and
corruption-sniffing of his profession to the simple, but profound level of a
small boy who will grow from funny papers to sports page, to editorials and politics.
Oh, the joy and bliss and magic of the funny papers.
We may wonder if the Big Story didn’t work out with a happy
ending, would he still take this child in his arms? Or would he head for the nearest bar?
As the movie ends, David Nelson passes out the copies of the
newspaper they’ve been working on all night.
Very few of us get to see the results of our day’s work so
immediately.
The credits roll, the actors get their bylines.
“-30-” as we are told in the final title card means “the
end.” It comes from the old Western Union telegraph codes established in 1859, one hundred years before this movie was made, when the news was first transmitted over long distances.
The number 30 was telegraphed to mean there was no more news coming across the wire.
Kind of like “over and out.”
It was used by reporters and rewrite staff, and pressmen in the composing room for generations, long after the use became obsolete.
I don’t know if it’s used anymore to signal the end of an article, probably not.
But, with great fondness for the history of journalism and
my own very small participation in it over the last few decades, and with a nod
to my high school journalism teacher, to this day when I finish a first draft
of anything I write—the draft nobody else sees—I end it with…
-30-
