Towards the end of his wonderful career, Humphrey Bogart continued making great films. Consider THE CAINE MUTINY, THE DESPERATE HOURS, African QUEEN, THE HARDER THEY FALL as well as this film--all first-rate films with an older yet still exciting Bogart at the helm. Sure, there were a few disappointments here and there (SIROCCO and BATTLE CIRCUS come to mind), but the Bogart of the 1950s was every bit as exciting to watch as he'd ever been. In fact because Bogey often played a less glamorous and less macho characters in these films, he was quite believable and showed he was a darn fine actor.

Here we see Bogart as the head of a newspaper that is about to be sold by the family that owns it. It seems the sleazy and more sensationalistic rival paper wants to buy it just to shut it down. The commentary on the sensationalistic "if it bleeds, it leads" style of reporting is just as timely then as it is now. But Bogey doesn't want to give up without a fight and refuses to just finish up his tenure with a whimper--choosing instead to pull out all the stops to "get the goods" on a local mobster who, up until that point, has been untouchable.

The film abounds with great performances, such as Ethel Barrymore's, Martin Gabel and Warren Stevens'--and of course Humphrey Bogart's. Additionally, the cast was blessed by having an excellent script that had a lot of depth as well as something to say. Sure, there were a few times it seemed a tad over-idealistic, but for the most part it was solid and exciting. In fact, I have no criticism of the film, as it was dandy entertainment and I sure wish they made them like this today. Give it a look--you won't be sorry.

Ed Hutcheson (Humphrey Bogart) is the crusading editor of a New York newspaper. He has to tell his crew that the newspaper is closing. With his workers scattering to the four winds, he goes to try to save his marriage. When one of his reporters gets beaten by gangster Rienzi, he decides to lead a final crusade and save his paper.

This is good newspaper drama with Bogie leading the way. They could have explain the ownership situation a little better but one gets the general idea. Bogie is great. This is good.

It all seems a little antique now -- newspapers and the power they wielded. It's probably difficult for anyone growing up now to grasp the fact that the radio and newspapers were virtually the only sources of news available to most people.

For a few cents you could buy a paper that not only presented you with current events but a crossword puzzle, the race results, tomorrow's weather, a political cartoon, an editorial about the latest geopolitical crisis or about the disrepair of the local sewer system, the exact times of sunrise and sunset, the names of ships entering the harbor, your horoscope, Lala Divoon being seen at 21 with handsome young Lance Aryan, and finally you could keep track of Dick Tracy and find out of Lil Abner got Mammy Yokum out of Dogpatch. So the significance of The Day in the daily life of ordinary people is hard to figure in an age when television itself is being replaced by the internet as a prime source of information.

"It takes talent to get the news, write it up, and back it up with research," editor Bogart tells the suits that control the money. "Back it up with research." Those were the days. Now any idiot can get on social media and print a rant about the hollow earth hypothesis and he can depend on certain of those among us to gobble it up. But the business that Bogart describes has its weaknesses too. The news may offend powerful gang figures like Rienzi (Martin Gabel) who owns judges and other high-echelon bureaucrats and can cause a lot of trouble, say, by murdering some of the paper's informants. ("I tole you I din't want no violence -- not yet anyways!")

Gabel's slapping Bogart across the face with a copy of The Day is small potatoes. Gabel has an egregious tendency to throw his corpses into the Hudson River clothed in nothing but a mink coat, or seeing to it that they tumble down into some kind of garbage disposal unit or horizontal milling machine in the press room.

All of this michigas irritates Bogart because at the same time he's coping with the mafia he's trying to save The Day from being acquired and disposed of by the competition. Also pressing on him is the fact that his wife, the infinitely appealing Kim Hunter, has divorced him and is about to marry her boss, an unworthy snooty dude wearing a permanent smirk of triumph.

The drama is alloyed with some comedic moments -- exchanges between Bogart and his elderly secretary, Miss Barndollar, who is compliant to a fault and entirely literal. And there are occasional wisecracks. Some goons posing as cops kill an informant. When the police show up, a detective snarls at one of the paper's editors, "Can't you tell a hoodlum from a real cop?" "In THIS town? (pause) Yes, sir."

Despite the most strenuous efforts of Bogart and his ally Ethel Barrymore, The Day comes to an end, but it's spirit lives on, inspired by a brave old immigrant lady who provides the evidence that sinks Rienzi. The brave old immigrant lady, here known by the cognomen of Mrs. Schmidt, is played by Kasia Orzazewski, born in Poland, who was Richard Conte's floor-scrubbing mother in "Call Northside 777." It's the kind of role any normal human being would want. You need an old immigrant lady? You call Kasia Orzazewski's agent. She didn't make that many movies -- a half dozen or so -- but for a couple of years she was the go-to brave old immigrant lady. She gets to provide the final encomium to the free press.

This cast, by the way, includes myriad supporting actors of note at the time, too many to list here. They play it in the classic style, delivering the goods like UPS drivers. The direction by Richard Brooks is the same, flawless, without inspiration, and politically correct in a reassuring way that makes one yearn for the years of confidence, faith, fortitude, and Mammy Yokum.