Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (January 30, 2025)
In a more modern era, films related to journalism tend to depict real-life events. For a look at something fictional and more fantastic, we go back to 1938's Here's Flash Casey.
Despite his experience as a photojournalist in college, Flash Casey (Eric Linden) struggles to land a job in the field. However, he eventually gains employment with Globe Press, and via this steady job, he also attempts to develop a romance with society editor and columnist Kay Lanning (Boots Mallory).
As Flash plies his craft, however, his pictures of notables in compromising situations make enemies. He needs to navigate these waters and build his career along with his love life.
At 56 minutes, Casey barely qualifies as a feature film. I imagine it ran on double bills or packaged with a bunch of shorts to stretch each showing’s running time.
Casey came from one of the small studios referred to as “Poverty Row” in that era. This meant low budgets and quick production schedules intended to crank out product at a rapid rate.
Those factors don’t guarantee films that feel like disposable “product”, but they don’t lead us to think the results will become anything noteworthy. Casey follows this pattern, as it offers a watchable but wholly forgettable tale.
Probably the biggest issue we confront with Casey stems from the aforementioned brief running time. With under an hour to tell its tale, the movie rushes like mad and lacks room to allow the characters and situations to breathe.
Instead, Casey runs through each sequence with abandon and never fleshes out anything well. Just when a story beat starts to gel, the movie skips to something else.
At least this prevents boredom, as Casey never stays in one place long enough for specific segments to grow tedious. Nonetheless, this means that we don’t find much of a real plot or character involvement along the way.
Most of Casey offers a screwball comedy, albeit not an especially amusing one. A look at the credits finds not a single member of the cast or crew that modern audiences will recognize, and that seems like a bad sign, as it implies not much talent on display.
None of the actors offer poor performances, but none show any real spark either. Behind the camera, Casey shows competence without anything more.
Eventually Casey turns into an awkward stab at a thriller, a tonal shift that seems out of nowhere and pointless. The film would’ve worked better if it stayed with Flash’s romance and some light laughs.
As noted, however, everything flies by so rapidly that this strange detour late in the story doesn’t really damage the film. It makes little sense but it doesn’t do harm.
Ultimately, Casey becomes a moderately interesting relic of its era but not much more. While it offers a way to pass the time for an hour, it seems unlikely to earn much investment from the viewer.
Footnote: both Wiki and IMDB claim that Casey comes with a 58-minute running time, which makes me wonder if the print used for this Blu-ray lost a scene. In particular, we get a clumsy fade as the movie shifts from a confrontation among newspaper editors to a segment with Flash and his landlady.
I suspect something got lost in there and that accounts for the BD’s shorter running time. However, I couldn’t find documentation so this remains a theory.
