User Reviews

Fun little short film about "Hot News Marg" (Marjorie Beebe), star reporter for gossip-hungry tabloid "the Gazette", who will stop at nothing to get her story including getting shot full of bullets under the protection of her trusty "bullet-proof brassiere".

On special assignment to get the lowdown on the rumored wedding of famous quarterback "Babe Booth" to a beautiful showgirl, Margie does it all to get the scoop, including playing football during a big match, disguised in football uniform (her stockings and panties left out on the men's locker room bench) and pestering Babe during game play ("Babe, are you married, huh, huh, be a good fella and give me the lowdown, are you married?").

Pretty amusing short, fast talking, and full of snappy patter and sexual innuendo - as Marg says "She'll get her story, even if she has to make the football team!". Marjorie Beebe is funny in this, and very entertaining to watch. A hoot.

"Hot News Margie" is frenetic fun.It has to be frenetic with only one reel. It seems too short for those of us used to two reels. Beebe was working for Mack Sennett at the time, and Sennett was on record as saying she had the potential to be the greatest film comedienne of them all. When you think of all the stars Sennett knew (he knew them all) that is praise indeed. I'd encourage anybody who enjoyed "Hot News" to have a look at the two reel stuff Beebe was doing during this period.

In "Doubling in the Quickies" Beebe plays an ingenue come to seek fame and fortune, in Hollywood. In "Cowcatcher's Daughter" she's defying her father, the great Andy Clyde, over who she should marry, and in "A Put-Up Job" she's the young wife having a self-assembly house put up by notorious bunglers Dane And Arthur, but none the less managing a little flirt with Karl Dane.

Three very different characters from the Beebe repertoire. The innocent abroad, albeit the innocent who likes the sound of her own voice, then the impudently charming cowgirl, and then the quieter self-possessed young wife with an eye for a big muscled builder. All funny roles, funny films. Recommended.

Plot about a lady tabloid newshound is a tossed off framework for rapid fire double entendres and outright outrageous bawdiness. Marjorie Beebe is cute and funny in her wacky pursuit of a scoop. A tidy little primer for modern audiences that remember the 30's for Snow White and Shirley Temple. This script would have Mae West preening with pride.

Forgotten slapstick comedienne Marjorie Beebe stars in this fast moving short subject of a gossip columnist trying to get a scoop. Beebe comes from the Mack Sennett school of journalism as well as humor.

The question of the day is Babe Booth football star married. Rumors abound, but Beebe will get the story.

Even if it means suiting up and playing with the boys. Football sequences are like Horsefeathers.

Fast moving comic short still holds up well.

Marjorie Beebe has the headline before it happens. When a man jumps out of a window, she tells her editor before the body passes the window. Sent to get a sports story, she says she'll get it if she has to make the whole football team. She joins the huddle, kicks a guard in the keister and invades the locker room for the story!

Warner Brothers' Vitaphone division was being pushed out of feature production, so they were redoubling on the short subjects. Although they are mostly remembered for their musical shorts, they had an active comedy division at this point, with Shemp Howard, and a brief tryout for Roscoe Arbuckle to make a comeback; the shorts were a success, he signed the contract.... and then died in his sleep. With this one, we see that Warners were hiring talent from the flailing comedy shorts producers as fast as they could fire them. Director Alf Goulding had been a fixture at Roach for more than a decade; Marjorie Beebe had been playing at Sennett's studio. Sound, however, had been an immense strain on the smaller studios, while it had been the making of Warner Brothers. They could pick up the discarded talent and push them through their distribution.

It's a chaotic short for my taste, far more intent on getting the gag done than anything else. here's nothing wrong with that, and if that's your taste, I think you'll like this.

Marjorie Beebe is a name that is practically forgotten today. In the 20s and 30s, she was a reasonably respected film comedienne, though I really wasn't familiar with her until I saw this film. Marjorie plays a super-obnoxious reporter who is out to cover the football game at Yankee Stadium. The problem is that she won't take no for an answer and literally runs onto the field in the middle of the game to get interviews. When this doesn't work, she disguises herself as a player and actually enters the game. None of this seemed funny to me and I found myself rooting for the players to just punch her in the mouth (as she talked and talked and talked). However, fortunately, the film wasn't an especially long Vitaphone short AND it did end on a very clever note--which I WON'T talk about because it would spoil the ending. Heck, this ending was so cute and so satisfying it's worth seeing just for this!

I have no idea if Marjorie's other starring films are that good, though I did see her in some supporting roles in the 20s. Hopefully she played characters not so unlikable as this one.

A Vitaphone Short Subject.

Tabloid snoop sister HOT NEWS MARGIE will go to any length to ensure she gets star football player Babe Booth's admission to a secret marriage.

This exceedingly brief & lively little film wastes no time going for the laughs. Marjorie Beebe gives a very boisterous performance in the title role.

Often overlooked or neglected today, the one and two-reel short subjects were useful to the Studios as important training grounds for new or burgeoning talents, both in front & behind the camera. The dynamics for creating a successful short subject was completely different from that of a feature length film, something like writing a topnotch short story rather than a novel. Economical to produce in terms of both budget & schedule and capable of portraying a wide range of material, short subjects were the perfect complement to the Studios' feature films.

Hot News Margie (1931)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Marjorie Beebe plays the title character, a fast-talking, quick-acting tabloid reporter who will do whatever it takes to get her story. Her editor gets a tip that a famous football player as married a Broadway beauty so he sends Margie to the stadium to get the story. HOT NEWS MARGIE is a 7-minute comedy that really isn't all that funny but it's still a must see simply because of how strange it is. I must say that I didn't laugh a single time, which is usually a death nail for a comedy but it actually didn't hurt this film too bad as it was made up by the sheer weirdness. The film runs a very quick 7-minutes, which doesn't allow any time for an actual story and instead it seems as if the director just had everyone acting and talking as fast as they could so that they could get through everything. The manor of which Margie goes about getting her story at the football game is just strange and especially a joke inside the locker room. Then we have the ending that I won't spoil but lets just say it's a keeper.