What stood out for me about "Scandal Sheet" is the resistance waged against the male duo of Mark Chapman (Broderick Crawford) & McCleary (John Derek) by the female duo of Julie Allison (Donna Reed) and Charlotte Grant (Rosemary DeCamp). The two men, an exploitative editor and his young top crime reporter, who he's grooming in his ruthless, dominating image, enjoy a continuous bond which is unbroken till the bitter end. .
Charlotte Grant, the battered, deserted, and poor wife who shows up at Chapman's Lonely Hearts Club awards dinner, appears at first to play no more role in "Scandal Sheet" than she does in her broken down life, washed up life. She's his "meet you at the side entrance" ex. But soon in a blistering showdown at her train-rattled apt., it is she who becomes the more anarchic force. With as much starkness as withering verbal blows, Charlotte resurrects the brutal George, yes "George" Grant. She shows her scars; she rejects the roll of bills he tosses unto her bed with "how much for the agony, the heartbreak and the fear," and threatens to expose this Mark Chapman. When he says she was no more to him than an "attractive hunk of flesh" and that he was "smothered to death" by her, she only rivets her rage and bravery into a direct jab to his face and promises him that "you and all you stand for are going to die."
And Charlotte's wick of anger is kept burning by another disobedient woman who is no more than arm's length away. Julie Allison, the feature writer at the newspaper, may be less furious and a more conventional rebel, but she never bends to either her domineering editor, or to her suitor, his cynical protege. Unlike the two of them, she has a moral compass. She's quiet, firm, intelligible, personable, and determined to put these downbeating men on full notice. She questions their intents, obtuseness, greed, & callousness; she walks out, breaks off, resigns, and letting no lovesop stand in her way, is implacably set on her own clear course--this, despite her paramour's stifling disbelief in her lucid points. If Charlotte is a match for George Grant, Julie is superior to both him and his kowtowing apprentice.
In checking Julie's last name, I noticed that Sam Fuller originated the script. So, I'm not surprised now by the women characters, because some in his own movies had similar uncompromising traits. I'm sure he was no feminist, but he no doubt wasn't about to reign them in like Mark Crawford raked his newspaper readers and wife in.
