The Famous Ferguson Case

Directed by Lloyd Bacon, The Famous Ferguson Case follows several reporters, including Joan Blondell’s tough Maizie and Tom Brown’s green Bruce, as they attempt to land a big story involving a dead banker. It’s workable subject matter that’s employed to tiresome, interminable effect by Bacon, as the filmmaker, armed with a script by Harvey F. Thew, Courtney Terrett, and Granville Moore, delivers a sluggish and almost astonishingly uninvolving narrative that contains few, if any, attributes designed to capture (and sustain) the viewer’s interest – with the arms-length atmosphere perpetuated by a lack of forward momentum and compelling characters. And while Blondell offers up a typically fiery turn that remains a rare highlight, even if it’s impossible not to confuse her Maizie with Adrienne Dore’s Toni (ie they just look so similar), The Famous Ferguson Case‘s aggressively tedious storyline, which even throws in a few ham-handed instances of speechifying towards the end, ensures that the whole thing peters out long before it reaches its curiously upbeat conclusion – with the final result a distressing misfire that squanders its talented cast and decent-enough setup.

* out of ****