Cub reporter Dusty investigates the murder of the District Attorney and stumbles into a plot involving a kidnapping and a crooked election.Cub reporter Dusty investigates the murder of the District Attorney and stumbles into a plot involving a kidnapping and a crooked election.Cub reporter Dusty investigates the murder of the District Attorney and stumbles into a plot involving a kidnapping and a crooked election.
King Baggot
- Ship's Captain
- (uncredited)
E.H. Calvert
- Police Inspector
- (uncredited)
Edward LeSaint
- Newspaper Printer
- (uncredited)
Wilfred Lucas
- Candidate Louis
- (uncredited)
Charles Sullivan
- Sailor
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaBoris Karloff was shooting this movie when James Whale, director of Frankenstein (1931), spotted him eating lunch in the Universal commissary. Whale saw Karloff's height and rather boxy head and decided to offer him a test for the role of the Monster in "Frankenstein," which became Karloff's star-making role.
- GoofsThe first name of the district attorney changes several times during the film. He is Carter Harrison in the opening credits, Martin Harrison on the door to his office, Carter again in the newspaper headlines announcing his murder, Martin in the final scenes and Carter in the closing credits.
- ConnectionsFeatured in The Universal Story (1996)
Featured review
Boris Karloff the only standout
"Graft" was the film being shot at Universal in late June 1931, the time when director James Whale had taken over preproduction reins of the upcoming "Frankenstein," spotted actor Boris Karloff dining in the commissary, and remembered his powerful presence in Howard Hawks' "The Criminal Code." Karloff is very much the sole reason for bothering to watch this fleeting programmer from director Christy Cabanne, whose only genre titles both starred George Zucco, "The Mummy's Hand" in 1940 and "Scared to Death" in 1946, plus the very first Crime Club entry from 1937, "The Westland Case." Screenwriter Barry Barringer certainly did better, with Lugosi's "The Death Kiss" and "The Return of Chandu," and one of the first starring roles for future Wolf Man Creighton Chaney, Monogram's outdoor effort "Sixteen Fathoms Deep." "Graft" looks like a small scale newspaper comedy/drama in the wake of "The Front Page" and "Five Star Final," so unambitious that it runs a meager 54 minutes but offers a rare lead for longtime utility man Regis Toomey, admittedly well cast as a dimwitted would be reporter, Dustin Hotchkiss, tiring of scripting ad copy but unable to secure the major gigs scored by Herold Goodwin's Speed Hansen (not Scoop Hanlon from "The Missing Guest"), so unlike his nickname that he never brings himself to bother leaving the bleeping office! News editor E. T. Scudder (Willard Robertson) offers Hotchkiss an opportunity to interview contractor M. H. Thomas (William B. Davidson), which explodes into a major scandal once Thomas' girlfriend, Pearl Vaughan (Dorothy Revier, later reuniting with Boris in "Night World"), emerges with the determination to spill the beans about his corrupt activities on the eve of certain electoral victory. She threatens to come clean with the D. A. but top henchman Terry (Karloff) not only prevents her from keeping the appointment at his home, he himself shoots the D. A. from outside his window, bumping into the inept Hotchkiss on his way to notifying the police (inexplicably, the unwitting newshound never considers him to be the killer). With a corpse unable to prosecute and Pearl safely being transported dockside for an intended watery grave, who else but Hotchkiss should predictably come to the rescue, but only if the villains act with supreme overconfidence and utter incompetence. Even Karloff's presence isn't enough to convey any sense of danger for the protagonist, who really takes the law into his own hands by spiriting the murderer away from the cops to lead them on a merry chase to his waiting editor, welcomed as some kind of hero instead of being arrested for reckless driving and endangerment! Thankfully, the days when smarmy, clueless reporters were the norm are long gone, making this extremely dated and exasperating save for the gravitas of Boris Karloff, who would not start shooting "Frankenstein" until after a quartet of small parts in "Business and Pleasure," "Scarface," "The Yellow Ticket," and "The Guilty Generation" (this was not the beginning of his career, merely the end of a 12 year screen apprenticeship).
helpful•12
- kevinolzak
- Mar 31, 2021
Details
- Runtime54 minutes
- Color
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content