Special Agent

Special Agent (1935)

SEE "T-MEN" MOP-UP MONEYED MOBSTERS G-GUNS COULDN'T GET

A federal tax agent goes undercover as a reporter and, working with a mobster's pretty bookkeeper, infiltrates a crime ring to catch the racketeer. When she agrees to testify, an informant exposes them and she's kidnapped.

Date of release
1935-09-14
TMDB
6.1 / 10 (15)
Runtime
1h 16m
Genres
Drama, Crime
Director
William Keighley

Casting

Interesting facts

Special Agent is a 1935 American crime drama film directed by William Keighley and starring Bette Davis and George Brent. The screenplay by Laird Doyle and Abem Finkel is based on a story by Martin Mooney. The film was produced by Cosmopolitan Productions and released by Warner Bros. Pictures.

Production notes

Special Agent was one of three 1935 films co-starring Bette Davis and George Brent, who appeared on-screen together a total of thirteen times. Neither was happy with the finished product. Brent told Ruth Waterbury of Photoplay that the picture was "a poor, paltry thing, unbelievable and unconvincing." At the behest of the Warner Bros. publicity department, his comments remained unpublished.

The film was made just after the Hays Office started to enforce the Production Code. They insisted on several minor changes and wanted a scene producer Sam Bischoff felt was crucial to the plot to be cut in its entirety. The censors compromised by allowing it to remain intact but without what they considered offensive dialogue. As a result, Ricardo Cortez' lips can be seen moving but nothing is heard on the soundtrack.

The Oscar-winning song "Lullaby of Broadway" by Harry Warren and Al Dubin is heard in the background in a scene set in a casino. The tune was introduced by Wini Shaw that same year in the musical film Gold Diggers of 1935, also a Warner Bros. release.

New York newspaperman Martin Mooney's story also served as the basis of the 1940 Warner Bros. release Gambling on the High Seas. Mooney provided the story for the following year's Bullets or Ballots and Exclusive Story as well as authoring the book Crime Incorporated (1935).

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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