Torchy Blane Complete Movie Collection: Archive Collection

As some reviewers have stated, the general premise for the Warner Brothers Torchy Blane series is based, in part, on a series of "McBride and Kennedy" stories by Frederick Nebel. The McBride police detective character was kept, but the hard-drinking male newspaper reporter named Kennedy was scrapped. In his place was created a feisty, blonde newspaper reporter named Torchy Blane, who also happened to have a romantic relationship with McBride. After recently reading a 1979 biography by Lee Israel entitled "Dorothy: A Biography of Dorothy Kilgallen," it's evident that a portion of the Torchy Blane character was based on the real-life 1930's exploits and adventures of crime reporter Dorothy Kilgallen. Long before becoming famous as a panelist on the "What's My Line?" TV game show, Dorothy was nationally known for her hard-hitting reporting of some of the most sensational murder cases in America. She was highly intelligent, very aggressive, and may have obtained her information for stories in much the same way as Torchy Blane did in her movies. The Torchy Blain film entitled "Fly-Away Baby, the Adventures of Torchy Blane" (1937) deals with an around the world air race consisting of reporters from different newspapers. In the movie, Torchy was the only female reporter in the race. And some of the air race, near the end of the movie, took place on a German dirigible. In 1936, Dorothy Kilgallen, the lone "girl reporter," did participate in a real air race around the world with two male reporters from other newspapers. For the most part, the race took place in commercial airplanes like the China Clipper. However, part of the race also took place in the Hindenburg, the infamous German dirigible that mysteriously exploded a few months later in 1937. Dorothy came in second in the race, but that didn't stop her from compiling her globetrotting adventures into a bestselling book entitled "Girl Around the World." In fact, Dorothy's biography, published 14 years after her death, clearly outlines how she came up with the idea for Torchy Blane's second film, and even wrote much of the screenplay herself. Warner Brothers liked the idea of a Torchy Blane film being based on a real air race since it was a studio that specialized in working topical news events into its steady stream of film releases. The third film in the Torchy Blane series is entitled "Adventurous Blonde" and there are numerous references to the big around the world air race that took place in the previous movie. It should also be noted that the Torchy Blane character contains elements of some fictional "girl reporters" from many other movies of the era, such as those portrayed by Rosalind Russell and Barbara Stanwyck. In fact, there were so many girl reporters in so many movies of the 1930's and 1940's, that they can easily be placed in a film sub-genre all their own. But the real-life "girl reporter" Dorothy Kilgallen definitely deserves to be credited as a member of the creative team that crafted the crusading, fast-talking movie "girl reporter" known as Torchy Blane. Torchy's free-wheeling personailty made this Warner Brothers B-movie series such a success in the theaters of the time, and such a cult favorite today. And, last but not least, it has to be mentioned that Torchy Blane is nothing without residing inside the amazing actor Glenda Farrell. Glenda's talent, beauty, and genuine sincerity brought Torchy to life in seven of the nine films in the series. Without Glenda Farrell, Torchy's film persona sinks like a lead balloon... or maybe I should say dirigible.

Gloria Farrell is a hoot as Torchy Blaine. Fun classic movie mystery. Great series.

this is a very good series of movies and highly entertaining!

Newspaper reporters were about the only women with permission to be bright, spunky, and independent in the 1930s, and Glenda Farrell does a good job making Torchy Blane all three. She and detective Steve McBride are an item, but somehow the wedding keeps getting put off--so Torchy can continue to be an independent (and fun) woman. Lola Lane plays Torchy in one of the movies, and Jane Wyman takes the role in the last; Wyman does a much better job. These are fairly short movies; a couple of them makes a fun night's viewing. Quality is good, although the soundtracks on a couple of the movies are quite faint and I needed to crank the sound way up to hear what was going on.

Glenda Farrell and Barton MacLane are fantastic in this series loosely based on Frederick Nebel’s MacBride & Kennedy series. They have a charm and class of which movies these days are devoid. Tom Kennedy is also hysterical as Gahagan. The two fill-in casts are forgettable, but this is more than worth it for the seven films with the real cast. I can’t recommend these films enough for anyone who likes classic movies or is tired of today’s boring tripe. Glenda Farrell and Barton MacLane are worth the price of admission and deserve to be seen in these classic roles.

No scratches

Torchy Blane was a fictional movie detective featured in these nine movies starting in 1937. In all but two Torchy was played by Glenda Ferrell. These are good mysteries, but the main enjoyment is the personality of the characters, and the humor. There are none of the special effects and excessive violence of modern criminal stories, so hang on for some time-travel as you prepare to watch these. If you like old technology (telephones, cars, old airplanes, and even a zeppelin), you will find these films have added interest. In spite of the warning that the disks were not intended for play on PCs, they worked fine on my iMac, which is as things should be. The film quality is not as sharp as I would have liked: I cannot tell if this is because they were intentionally degraded for distribution, or if they are just digitized from rough copies. The stories are entertaining and fun, and the acting is fine, particularly by Glenda Ferrell.

Hollywood made tons of B movies during the 30's and 40's to be part of a double feature with an A movie or another B. Some of these B movies are art of the highest level like Val Lewton's horror masterpieces made at RKO in the early 40's. They also provided supporting actors in A movies a chance to spread their wings and play something different. The Torchy Blane movies give veteran bad/ tough guy Barton MacLane a chance to play a comic leading man which he does quite well in these movies. Before seeing these he was known to me as the bad guy Cagney or Bogart always took care of by the final reel. I loved Glenda Farrell and Jane Wyman for that matter in the role of Torchy..........these movies are fun, breezy, and entertaining......highly recommended.

Ordered the "Torchy Blane" complete DVD collection. Deserves more than five stars, but what can you do? VERY reasonable price for an import. Received ten days early, Combination of Royal Mail and Canada Post, VERY reliable Disc set arrived in pristine condition, Not a scuff or a flaw on either the packaging or the discs. VERY well packaged for shipping. Read the majority of the NEGATIVE reviews, they all had to do with issues during shipping, NOT vendors fault

Wonderful look back in time solid mysteries , my only complaint is they used several Torchys and I did not like them all my fave was Glenda Farrell and Barton Maclane and they were used in only three.

The Warner DVD-R set of all nine of the Torchy Blane series contains the full set of Torchy Blane "B" pictures originally put out by Warner from 1937 to 1939. There are 5 DVD-Rs, with 2 movies per DVD except the last; the movies are presented in their original order of appearance. There are no special features, and no scene menus. You have to fast forward or rewind to find particular spots. The sound is pretty good on all the films. The image is mostly clear but there are some speckles and sparkles etc. that spoil the image for half a second here and there throughout. These are old films, and unrestored; but for the most part their flaws are not distracting, especially to those who grew up watching worse prints on late-night TV of movies from this period. They are in good shape for the price. The films are all roughly an hour in length. Of the nine episodes in the series, episodes 1-4 and 6-8 feature Glenda Farrell as reporter Torchy Blane and Barton MacLane as police lieutenant Steve McBride. Episode 5 has Lola Lane as Torchy and Paul Kelly as Steve; Episode 9 has Jane Wyman as Torchy and Allen Jenkins as Steve. The only actor featured in all nine of the episodes is Tom Kennedy, who plays McBride's comic sidekick Gahagan. Lola Lane's Torchy is the most athletic, and Jane Wyman's Torchy is the sweetest, and both of them do a creditable job, but once one has the image and voice of the wisecracking tough girl Glenda Farrell in one's brain, it is hard to accept any substitute. True, Glenda Farrell often -- when her makeup isn't fresh -- looks every bit of her late-30s age, and sometimes even like a woman in her 40s, with a hard edge to her eyebrows and smile, making one wonder what Steve sees in her, romantically speaking; yet her personality makes the character, and the series. I was surprised to see how low most of the films are ranked on the IMDb, often in the low sixes. Not one of them is ranked as high as a 7 out of 10, which is grossly unfair; they are better than that. The first film is in my view the weakest (probably because 6 different people had a hand in the screenplay), but as the series goes on, the number of different writers on each screenplay drops, the characters (including Gahagan and other supporting characters) appear more and more comfortable, and the stories flow more smoothly as well. If you watch the films in the order of presentation you will be pleasantly surprised, as the series seems to improve (on average) over time. The better episodes are surely worth at least 7 out of 10. (Incidentally, if one measures the films by plot alone, rather than actors and actresses, two of the best episodes are #5 and #9 -- the ones that don't feature Farrell and MacLane.) There aren't a lot of major guest stars in these films, though Patric Knowles, Frank Reicher, and Anne Nagel appear once each, and a few well-known "bit" players (like Jimmy Conlin) pop up here and there. The series is held together in the Farrell-MacLane episodes by the steady leads, despite many changes in screenwriters and directors. The consistently present character of Gahagan, along with the police chief and Torchy's editor at the newspaper, helps to create a sense of continuity even in the two episodes where the leads are different. These are nominally crime/police/mystery pictures, but they are as much light comedy as mystery. There is an ongoing battle of professional egos between Torchy and Steve, and a battle of the sexes, and their impending marriage, which always seems about to happen, keeps getting put off by a new case of either Steve's or Torchy's. The comical turn of Gahagan, and of the absent-minded desk sergeant who appears in many episodes, also serves to lighten these stories up. These are Warner films and have a Warner feel to them, but definitely a "B" feel. They have crime and gangsters and tough dames, but they aren't Cagney or Bogart films. If you expect that level of quality in acting and screenwriting, and that level of seriousness in subject matter, you will be disappointed. But if you are looking for something that is just generally entertaining, these one-hour short films are all right. If you have to pay $45 for the set, you are getting the films for $5 each, which is not outrageous considering how hard to find they are.