First, why do I say it is dated? It is a matter of acting tastes. While several of the leads (the always good Robinson and Karloff, Aline MacMahon, and H.B.Warner) give strong performances (witness Warner's last three minutes in the film as the strain of his wife's tragedy finally destroys him), there is too much of the 1931 "staginess" of the acting style of that day in FIVE STAR FINAL. Put this way: my mother (who watched the film with me) enjoyed it, but laughed at that staginess - she was born in 1928, so as a kid many movies of the early 1930s would have had that style of acting, and she found it archaic).
Bernarr MacFadden is recalled (if at all) as a one time newspaper owner and food/diet/health faddist. The latter career is what most people remember (one of his diet/health followers was Greta Garbo). Coming from the hinterlands, MacFadden looked like a hick but had tremendous energy, ego, and ambition. He bought the failing New York Evening Graphic in the 1920s and taking full advantage of that age of ballyhoo turned it into the raggiest newspaper of the day. As mentioned he made up "photographs" supposedly showing the crimes and punishments he was reporting. He did everything to scoop the rival Hearst and other papers of news dirt. His intention was (as was Hearst's, with more plausibility) to build himself into a national figure for political office - hoping to eventually become President. It did not work (fortunately). I say that safely. I have read his editorials about the end of certain criminals, and he sounds not soporific but childish in the intensity of his dislike (in one of them he actually wrote something like, "Now, he's dead, dead, dead...that'll show him!" - I am not making that up!!).
The depth of the Graphic's career really was in 1928. A ridiculous marriage-divorce case, that of millionaire landlord Edward Browning (age 70) and his young wife "Peaches" (age under 20) broke out, and instead of ignoring it and concentrating on real news, MacFadden actually did his idiotic fake photos on the front page. Browning apparently (like all husbands with their wives, or people with their sex companions) had private language with Peaches that the court revealed. When he wanted sex but badgered his wife he (supposedly) said "Woof, woof, don't be a goof!", and if he described intercourse he'd say, "Honk, honk, it's the bonk!". MacFadden showed Browning and Peaches in bedclothes in their bedroom, with cartoon balloons with the expressions in them. The "goof" expression was coming from Browning, but the "bonk" expression came from a goose or duck that was transposed into the frame of the picture (probably because the latter's "quack" is sometimes like a "honk").
FIVE STAR FINAL was one of the favorite of Eddie Robinson. Coming a year after his breakout success in LITTLE CAESAR he was glad (for once) not to have to be a gangster but a city room editor on a tabloid ready to blow up. Robinson's Joseph Taylor has been working for a New York City newspaper for 10 years as editor (before that he worked on other papers, but none quite so sensational). The owner of this paper, Hinchcliffe (Oscar Apfel) is a respectable looking millionaire, but he is an arch-hypocrite. He likes higher and higher circulation and does not mind if he uses scandals to boost his paper. By the way, some of the best minor sequences in FIVE STAR FINAL show Hinchclffe and Robinson discussing items that have to be moved or dropped and the effects on the public. Apparently their dropping of some articles by former Black heavyweight champ Jack Johnson (about his girlfriends) caused a dip in the circulation sales in Harlem (Robinson adds to this tidbit by mentioning that his housekeeper stopped buying the newspaper when that happened!).
The plot of the film is that a twenty year old homicide that resulted in the acquittal of the perpetrator is resurrected for circulation. The woman (Marian Marsh) has married (H.B.Warner) and has a daughter (Frances Carr) who is getting married to the son (Anthony Bushnell) of the a wealthy manufacturer. The revelation of the old scandal (skillfully hidden by Marsh and Warner) is threatened by the newspaper series. The older couple then compound the problem when they mistakenly trust Boris Karloff as a clergyman (he was a defrocked theology student, who now is a sleazy reporter). The revelations lead to deeper and deeper problems, and eventual tragedy.
Aline MacMahon is Robinson's secretary (and girlfriend) who knows he is better than his activities suggest. But it is not until the tragedy that Robinson's self-loathing for his activities emerges. It determines him on a showdown with Apfel, which is complicated by the arrival of another party who wants a confrontation and an explanation.
The film is good, if some of the dialog turns to be too racy (and even bigoted) at times. The issue of the limits of a free press are always with us, and this presents it quite well up to Robinson's final commentary and actions to show his disgust with his job.
How true is it that we do not forgive old felons or suspects in crimes? It varies. Those who are pedophiles or sex criminals are rarely forgiven, especially as they have to register with the police in many jurisdictions. As for our murderers, well you have the example of O. J. Simpson, and how he may now be finally facing a delayed punishment in a different crime. On the other hand, you have the case of the successful detective story novelist Anne Perry, who went to prison as a juvenile for murder. There is no universal rule on accepting these people one way or another. It probably depends on the crime involved.
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