The Girl in the News

Based on a bestselling novel by Roy Vickers, Carol Reed’s The Girl in the News has nothing on the director’s late 40’s noir masterpieces but still packs a clever, elaborate crime story into a mere 78 minutes with a young, radiant Margaret Lockwood in center stage. Lockwood projects her enormous star power, even when conservatively dressed like a religious pilgrim, as Anne Graham, a domestic nurse who stands trial not once but twice for murdering two bedridden patients, months apart, using an overdose of the same soporific. After being acquitted the first time despite a cloud of continued suspicion, Anne accepts another household position, unaware the new employer plans to use her as a scapegoat for a murder they plan to carry out in identical fashion. Reed and cinematographer Otto Kanturek sprinkle in some visual innovation (Dutch angles, reflections) and location shooting (London streets, train stations), but the film relies mostly on its story to keep us watching.