Very Cool!!!

Please don't spend money on this.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

After watching the profoundly mediocre Torchy Blane in Chinatown I decided that I wouldn't bother watching any more movies in the Torchy series. But when I saw this on TCM, I thought, well, it's the first movie in the series so perhaps it's a bit better. After all, it inspired a series.Maybe it is better - I didn't watch enough of it to be sure - but it's certainly not very good. There is a clunky amateurishness about the film and its performers that puts it below a big percentage of B movies. It's more of a C movie.Still, if I hadn't already had a poor impression of Torchy I might have given the film more than 20 minutes. Maybe it gets better after that.

Dynamite comes in small packages. Which describes both short "B" second feature Smart Blonde and its cute, perky star Glenda Farrel as Torchy Blane. Initial entry in the highly successful Torchy Blane series, Smart Blonde runs on open throttle for its entire 59 minutes. It is smart, tough, breezy, lightning paced, with funny, snappy dialog delivered incredibly fast. This picture is nothing if not fast-talking. Glenda Farrell reportedly could speak 390 words per minute, and she demonstrates it throughout. But co-star Barton MacLane, who plays her tough cop boy friend Steve McBride, may actually have surpassed her in the motor mouth department in a couple of scenes. Most of the other Runyonesque characters in this entertaining mystery do likewise. If all the dialog in this movie had been delivered at a normal cadence, the running time would have been at least twenty minutes longer. This picture along with other Warner Brothers gangster movies of the 1930's makes you wonder if the studio had a course in fast talking for its stock players.Stock players were exactly what Farrell and MacLane were. Usually in supporting parts, she the hard-boiled broad, he the burly, loud-mouthed gangster or cop. But the Torchy series gave both a chance to use their special talents in leading roles, and both made the best of it. The pair had crackling chemistry together, with cozy affectionate interludes only occasionally breaking their constant rat-a-tat wise-cracking. Torchy is a smart girl reporter who solves the cases Steve isn't sharp enough to dope out on his own. At least that's the way she sees it.Farrell and MacLane get solid support from a crew of other Warner Brothers stock players, especially Addison Richards as a shady, but on-the-level night club/race track operator around whom the murder mystery swirls, Wini Shaw as the beautiful singer who loves him, and Charlotte Wynters as the high class dame he loves. This role as a tough, but likable borderline hoodlum was a real change of pace for Richards. In 400 movie and television appearances from the 1930' to the 1960's the tall, lanky actor rarely played other than judges, district attorneys, doctors, high ranking army officers, and other dignified types. MacLane may have showed good chemistry with the pretty, vivacious Farrell, but it was Charlotte Wynters who became Mrs. Barton MacLane about a year after Smart Blonde's release.Smart Blonde is a delightful, stimulating little mystery potboiler, full of plot twists, intrigues, and explosive bursts of action. Characterization is colorful and well developed. As a big studio "B" picture, the sets and cinematography are nearly as good as in one of Warner Brothers' top productions. Director Frank McDonald, a life-long "B" picture specialist, keeps all on target throughout. To compress all that happens in the story into less than an hour running time, even considering the machine gun dialog delivery, should rate as a masterpiece of film editing for Frank MaGee. Acting was first rate all around but especially from the two likable leads.An enduring example of how the big studios of Old Hollywood could turn out good looking, entertaining pictures when only half-way trying.

From an era when even the actual name of the detective working on a murder case could make newspaper headlines, comes one of cinema's earliest female amateur sleuths, Torchy Blane. Torchy is not just an independent working woman who is good at her job, she also has a mind (and a hunch) for crime-solving on the side; her persistent snooping annoys, but also aids, her tough cop boyfriend. In "Smart Blonde", they both investigate the shooting of a wealthy investor outside a train station. There is nothing out of (or above) the ordinary in the film's direction or supporting cast (though Tom Kennedy is quite funny as a poetry-loving comic relief cop), but the story is pretty good, and Glenda Farrell is beautiful and energetic as Torchy; you can't take her eyes off her. ** out of 4.

This 1937 "Torchy Blane" film, "Smart Blonde" has Torchy Blane (Glenda Farrell) trying to find out who killed an entrepreneur who just purchased a night club and some gambling establishments. Torchy is a witness to the murder. Later on, one of the suspects, the dead man's bodyguard, is also found dead. Torchy and her some time boyfriend, Lt. McBride (Barton MacLane), as usual, are at odds as far as who the killer is.There were quite a few of these films, this being the first, starring character actress Farrell, with MacLane as McBride. The two have great chemistry. These films were always lively and the real story always seemed to be about Torchy and McBride's relationship rather than any actual mystery, though the mysteries certainly were present.Fast-talking, smart Torchy is an independent woman along the lines of Hildy in "His Girl Friday" and the Torchy Blane series was the first (I think) to star a woman; the Maisie series began in 1939.Always entertaining.