Compared to his roles in Dragnet or the DI, Jack Webb was positively eloquent playing night editor Sam Gatlan in -30-. For those of you who don't know, the title is the symbol put at the bottom of every newspaper article or news release signifying the end.
-30- tells the story of half a day in the office of a working newspaper in Los Angeles of the Fifties. The film is centered around the characters of Webb and Bill Conrad who are in charge as they decide the content and format of a daily edition.
-30- doesn't break any new ground, but has a nice documentary look to it which is what you would expect from the Jack Webb who gave us the daily grind in police work in Dragnet and with paramedics in Emergency. A bit more of a personal life is seen here with Webb and his wife Whitney Blake as they are going through a personal crisis of their own, whether to adopt young Ronnie Dapo or not.
Some familiar character players populate the newsroom here like Howard McNear, Joe Flynn, Richard Deacon, David Nelson who fill out their assigned roles very well. The primary news is about the rescue of a little girl trapped in a sewer drain. The film never leaves the set of the press room much like Dead End or Rear Window and like those films, the set almost becomes a character. But the most unforgettable characters are rich beauty queen Nancy Valentine who wants a journalism career and wants people to take her seriously and Louise Lormer as a veteran reporter who sustains a personal tragedy, but whose commitment to her job carries her through.
-30- like some of the journalism dramas of previous years is almost quaint now with most people getting their news from the internet or from radio and television. Still the papers are out there, struggling as they are for their audience. The people who work on newspapers are nicely tributed by Jack Webb and this film.
