I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Directed by Mervyn LeRoy, and featuring a screenplay co-written by Abem Finkel, this crime comedy-drama was later remade with Ronald Reagan as Love is in the Air (1937), then again with George Brent in You Can't Escape Forever (1942), and finally as The House Across the Street (1949) with Wayne Morris. This one stars Paul Muni, who would win an Oscar on his fourth (of six) Best Actor nomination(s) the following year playing the title character in The Story of Louis Pasteur (1935).Sam Bradshaw (Muni) is the managing editor of the newspaper run by John Graham (Berton Churchill). He'd bumped reporter Gerry Krale (Glenda Farrell) down to the "Dear Abby"-type job that no one wants when she made a mistake, falling asleep and missing a big story, some time earlier (before the film begins). The paper's lovelorn columnist uses the byline "Nellie Nelson", so Gerry's peers yell "Hi, Nellie!", ridiculing her, every time she passes through the newsroom. Hobart Cavanaugh plays "Fully" Fullerton, a reporter who is rejected every time he asks Gerry for a date. Donald Meek plays "Durky" Durkin, an office boy for the past 40 years. When two stories break at the same time, one about the disappearance of a bank executive and another about that same bank going bankrupt, the assistant editor Dawes (Douglass Dumbrille) is ready to link the two with big headlines on the front page. Sam, however, stops it saying he doesn't run that kind of story without supporting facts, besides, he says "the guy's always been on the level". Every other paper apparently does, so Sam is "called to the mat" by his boss Graham, who's just finished meeting with O'Connell (Edward Ellis). Thanks to Sam's lawyer (Frank Reicher), Graham can't fire him. So, his publisher reassigns Sam to the Nellie Nelson job.Disgruntled, Sam starts drinking and is all but finished after a couple of months of barely doing the new column. However, Gerry catches up with him at a bar and tells him he's got no guts. Out to prove her wrong, Sam starts doing the heartthrob job in earnest. During this time he meets Rosa Marinello (Dorothy Le Baire), a woman whose undertaker father has refused to give her permission to marry. After three months, Sam is called into his publisher's office again. Thinking he's about to get his old job back, Sam is shocked to learn that, because his "Nellie" column has increased the paper's circulation, Graham wants him to keep doing it. Upset, he returns to his office where Shammy (Ned Sparks), one of the paper's investigators, tells Sam he's got a lead in the disappearance of the bank executive - an address from his wife (Marjorie Gateson). Sam notices that the address Shammy gives him happens to match one that Miss Marinello gave him. John Qualen appears, uncredited, as the janitor of an empty apartment. This eventually leads the two of them to visit Mr. Marinello (George Humbert), where they trap him into revealing that there's been a phony burial, and then follow the panicked man to the "Merry Go Round" club, which happens to be owned by suspected crime boss Beau Brownell (Robert Barrat). Once inside the club, the two also see O'Connell.The whole scheme starts to unravel, with Sam bluffing his way into getting a confirmation from Brownell to what he suspects has happened, after he'd roused a drunken bank cashier (George Meeker), that Shammy had recognized, in his office. Then it's a race against time, with the newspaper men calling in their "troops" and the "gangster" his. Guess who wins and guess who then gets assigned the heartthrob column?

A bad editorial decision causes New York newspaper editor Paul Muni to be fired then suddenly due to contract stipulations be "demoted" to editor of a love-lorn column, run anonymously by someone named "Nellie". Muni's old girlfriend, Glenda Farrell, who previously ran the column (and desperately wanted off) is promoted, while new editor (and Muni's old rival) Douglas Dumbrille rubs his promotion into Muni's face. Even the newly hired page refers to the humiliated Muni as "Nellie", and in a fit of anger, Muni destroys his office and heads out to get drunk. But with words of encouragement from Farrell and the hopes of secretly clearing his name in the bank scandal which got him demoted in the first place gives Muni hope that he'll be able to get through this down-phase of his career and move back up the ladder.Well written and extremely well acted, this newspaper comedy with serious overtones is a change of pace for veteran theater actor Muni who never had, and never would again, star in a movie comedy. He reminds me very much of Fredric March here with his crisp, cynical performance, Farrell an excellent foil and supported by such excellent character actors as Ned Sparks, Donald Meek, Berton Churchill, Marjorie Gateson and Robert Barrat, with special mention going to Sidney Miller as the spunky office boy who isn't afraid of cracking wise with the veterans at the paper. Meek is very amusing in a scene where he tells Miller not to kow-tow to him, because he has been an office boy himself for over 40 years.

In that stretch of years between his performance in I'm A Fugitive From A Chain Gang and The Story Of Louis Pasteur, Paul Muni hit a dry patch with his home studio of Warner Brothers. They put him in a series of films way beneath his talent when you consider what he subsequently did and I'm told he particularly despised this film. From his point of view I can see why.Still Hi, Nellie! is not all that bad, though I think Muni was definitely a second choice. James Cagney must have been doing something else at the time. The film has the feel of a project meant for Cagney.Knowing that and knowing how much he wanted to do much more serious parts Muni pulls out all the stops and hams it up to beat the Philharmonic. I guess he had to have some fun.Muni is your hardboiled editor of a city newspaper, a very typical part for the Thirties. But when he uncharacteristically soft pedals a story about a bank folding and a prominent civic leader disappearing, he gets himself demoted. Publisher Berton Churchill can't fire him because of a contract, but instead demotes him to the writer of the advice to the lovelorn column. That's a source of great amusement to all those who were under him before, especially Glenda Farrell who was writing that column and wanted a chance for some hard hitting journalism.But Paul is nothing else if not resourceful and when a chance sob sister letter comes to his attention that might give him a lead on that story that he got in a sling over, he runs with it.Warner Brothers and director Mervyn LeRoy gave Paul a really good cast to support him with Donald Meek playing the world's oldest office boy, Douglass Dumbrille as the editor who succeeds Muni, and Robert Barrat as the political boss of the city and ultimate villain of the piece.It's not Zola, or Pasteur, but Hi, Nellie is not half bad as entertainment. Just not up to Paul Muni's exacting standards.

Having seen Paul Muni in so many dramas, I wondered if he could pull off comedy as well. I needn't have worried. Since he's teamed with Glenda Farrell, a master of the wisecrack, he gets solid support and the looks they exchange throughout the movie are priceless. One scene that I loved was when Glenda is pretending to be Nellie Nelson so that a woman will confide in her and she's bossing Muni around like he's her office boy.The plot isn't that original. In fact, there are several versions on the same theme (star reporter demoted), but this one has the star material to give it an extra life. Ned Sparkes also adds to the fun.