To me, this movie is perfection.

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Reporter Torchy Blane denounces City Hall corruption in a series of scathing newspaper stories that are raising some serious hackles. Her fiancé, Lieutenant Steve McBride, even goes to her editor and begs him to have somebody else write the stories—he's worried about Torchy's safety. And Steve doesn't even know about Torchy's eavesdropping operation in the City Hall basement, from which she listens in on the mayor's office, where local crime boss Dr. Dolan gives the puppet mayor his orders. Glenda Farrell is back once again as the intrepid reporter who loves to investigate. Barton McLane as Steve is plenty solid this time around—he's still generally a step behind Torchy but isn't as much of a dunce as in a couple of earlier series entries. ("Listen, Steve," Torchy tells him at one point, "I know more about this case than you." "Well," he replies, unimpressed, "if you do I'll find it out.")John Miljan is appropriately sinister as the wicked Dr. Dolan. In true Warner Brothers style, he talks so fast when he's excited that you can hardly understand him.Tom Kennedy returns as Gahagan, the poetry-loving police chauffeur who loves to blow the police car siren. Even Gahagan is fairly serious and competent this time around, though he does offer a few choice bits of comic relief (like when he commends Torchy for having such "international fortitude"). An exciting climax helps distinguish this as one of the better Torchy Blane pictures. The plot is a little ridiculous (see the title) but that's kind of beside the point—it's witty, acted with enthusiasm, and moves at a terrific pace.

"Torchy Runs For Mayor" was the only film in the series directed by Ray McCarey (brother of the more famous Leo), and the change is noticeable in the film's punchier, more adventurous directorial style compared to its "safer" predecessors. There is a real sense of danger here, with the villains playing it straight. But Torchy is also at her most determined and righteous. The comedy content is reduced, along with Gahagan's part; at the end, even he is transformed into a (mostly) competent action hero! My one main objection is that the title, catchy as it may be, gives away a plot development that occurs late into the movie, robbing it off its surprise factor. **1/2 out of 4.

**SPOILERS** With her hard hitting articles on city corruption hitting their mark newspaper reporter Torchy Blane, Glenda Farrell, soon gets a bit ahead of herself in bugging mobster Doc Dolan's, John Mijan, office. Dolan is behind Mayor John Saunder's re-election campaign whom he, and his mob, controls like a puppet on a string. But Without a court order, which she doesn't have, Torchy's evidence against Dolan would be thrown out of court before it ever reached the light of day.We have Torchy get her hands on Dolan's "Little Red", or political payoff, book that has him use all his influence-by withdrawing advertisement to the newspaper that she works for-to have Torchy canned from her job as the papers star ace reporter. Not scared off at all by Dolan's tactics Torchy gets a job at a rival paper and continues her attacks, in print, on both Dolan and his stooge in City Hall Mayor Saunders. With the articles by Torchy hitting home the paper's-The Blotter- editor Hurbert Ward,Irving Bacon, is drafted by the people to run against Mayor Saunders in the upcoming city elections. This leads to Ward getting whacked by one of Dolan's hoods Spuds O'Brian, Joe Downing, and made to look like he was the victim of a love triangle gone wrong.With no one in city politics willing to run against Mayor Saunders and take on the Dolan Mob who's backing him It's then that Torchy on the advice-or practical joke-of her fiancée Det. Steve McBride, Barton MacLane, decides to run for mayor herself! This opens a whole new can of worms for Torchy in that she now has the full force of the Doc Dolan political machine bearing down on her. Something that the plucky and fast talking Torchy Blane seemed to have been totally unprepared for!The last of the Glenda Farrell Torchy Blane films and one of her best. It's also the film where Torchy and her long suffering boyfriend, in having to put up with her zany antics, Det. McBride finally tied the knot. But only after McBride together with his partner, police Irish Poet, Gahagan, Tom Kennedy, find out where the Dolan gang hid Torchy after they drugged and kidnapped her. With both McBride & Gahagan together with about a half dozen policemen coming to Torchy's rescue Dolan slipped out the back making his escape in Gahagan's police car.***SPOILER*** If Doc Dolan only knew what his gang, without them telling him, had done to Gahagan's car he may well have gotten away. The fact that they didn't had Dolan press the wrong button, or car floorboard, which instantly turned him into a blob of highway roadkill!

Glenda Farrell filed her last story and in a sense made her own new in this film. Just the title Torchy Runs For Mayor should tell you all you need to know.Our showgirl turned reporter is after a crooked city administration this time. The mayor, Charles Richman, is a grafter, but he's just a puppet in the hands of the real political boss of the city, John Miljan. Miljan also happens to be a medical doctor which comes in quite handy in his criminal pursuits.When the original reform candidate Irving Bacon is murdered and another guy framed, Torchy through a bit of a joke by boyfriend Barton MacLane finds herself the reform candidate. Glenda Farrell is pretty resourceful in getting her news, including an illegal bug in the mayor's office. But Miljan is one clever guy and she gets in more harm's way here than in any other film in the series.In fact that gives MacLane more of an opportunity. Usually he's just there both being shown up by her as a detective and also getting the accolades for the crimes that she helps solve. But when Farrell does get in harm's way she has need of MacLane.There was only one more Torchy Blane film, Jane Wyman was given the role with Allen Jenkins as her detective boyfriend. That team set no box office records and Torchy filed her last story with Jane.This last one with Farrell and MacLane though is pretty good and downright excellent for a B film out of Warner Brothers.