Five Star Final (1931)




Marian Marsh - Five Star Final




Bernard Hinchecliffe, the owner of a notorious gossip newspaper, the Gazette, orders his managing editor Joseph Randall to increase circulation by publishing a series of articles on the Vorhees case. Years earlier, Nancy Vorhees murdered the man who betrayed her and is now remarried as Mrs. Townsend. Her daughter Jenny is about to marry Phillip Weeks. Randall hires T. Vernon Isopod, a former divinity student, to disguise himself as a clergyman and infiltrate the Townsend home. He learns about the impending marriage and takes photographs. After the first article is published on the day of the wedding, Nancy and her husband take their own lives, causing the wedding to be called off. Jenny becomes hysterical and attempts to shoot Hinchecliffe, but Phillip stops her and threatens to kill the publisher if the articles continue. Ashamed of his role in the tragedy, Randall quits and confronts Hinchecliffe.


Vintage magazines

Photoplay , July 1931
Photoplay , September 1931
Photoplay , October 1931


Books with substantial mentioning of Five Star Final

John Dileo
100 Great Film Performances You Should Remember - but probably don't
New York, 2002

Richard Bojarski and Kenneth Beals
The Films of Boris Karloff
Secaucus, NJ, 1974

Books with an entry on Five Star Final

Robert Beck
The Edward G. Robinson Encyclopedia
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London, 2002