Al Westerfield Fergusen is a top Warners programmer with a great ensemble cast. Blondell and Mitchell are the nominal stars but certainly don't have the flashiest parts. Virtually all of the actors do even the smallest parts with great believability, a credit to the director. Some aspects of the newspaper game are shown as sordid as they really were but frankly, a bit overplayed for dramatic value. As with some other Warners films of the period, notably I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang made the same year, this is a hard hitting message film meant to right a social wrong. It's obviousness detracts from the overall effect but it still hits you in the gut. The final scenes are as impressive as anything the studio has ever done. Deserves to be much better known and appreciated.

ksf-2 Joan Blondell, Grant Mitchell, and the very young Tom Brown star in this early talkie from First National/Warner Brothers. When the bank bigshot is found moidered, the small town newspaper sends the story out on the wires, and all the bigtime reporters converge. Of course, they just want a story, any story, so they have already made up their minds about what happened. We even hear them talking about what might happen if the facts don't match their news stories. The coppers try to race to find out what really did happen, while the newspaper hounds from the big cities try to manipulate the local prosecutor and anyone involved. Will the truth get out before the big trial is over? Pretty fast moving. Good Story, if a bit exaggerated. Didn't win any awards, but those first few years of Oscars were hit or miss anyway. Directed by Lloyd Bacon, who tarted as an actor in the EARLY days of the silent films, and made the switchover to director, and sound. Story by Courtney Terrett. Made me think of Citizen Kane, when the reporters and publishers were not held to such a high standard of fact checking.

JohnHowardReid A newspaper yarn, "The Famous Ferguson Case" (1932) is something of a warm-up for director Lloyd Bacon's next movie, "Miss Pinkerton". This one, however, is rather dialogue bound. In fact, there's rather too much chatter, chatter, chatter all told! What's worse, despite is prolixity, it's all delivered at a rather flat, deliberate pace. True, some of the players do manage to keep the audience onside, and the plot itself moves along briskly enough when it's not weighed down by all the talk, but Bacon does little or nothing to communicate with his potential audience. Fortunately, in his next film, he shows more than a bit of form, so "The Famous Ferguson Case" cam be viewed as an anticipatory sampling of far better things to come!

Michael_Elliott The Famous Ferguson Case (1932)** (out of 4) A great idea is pretty much wasted due to a weak screenplay in this melodrama from Warner. Wall Street big shot Ferguson is shot and murdered inside his summer home and his wife (Vivienne Osborne) tells the police that she was tied up by some robbers. The case gets some of the biggest newspaper reporters in the country and soon they're putting the pieces together without any evidence and they think the better story would be that Mrs. Ferguson's rumored lover (Leon Ames) was behind the killing in an attempt for them two to knock off the husband. THE FAMOUS FERGUSON CASE kicks off with a prologue warning newspapers about not seeking the truth and instead coming up with fake stories to sell papers. It seems this warning would be even more understandable in 2012 but sadly the film takes a rather interesting story and does very little with it. I think the idea of showing how crooked reporters are could have made for a very interesting story but sadly the screenplay here comes off rather lazy at times and by the time the film's over it's just a tad bit too much to believe. The biggest problem is that the prosecutor here is just so downright stupid that he allows the reporters to pretty much tell him who to charge, tell him what happened and he's also dumb enough to have the reporters write his court speeches. This here is just so sloppily written that I didn't believe the situation for a second. Another problem is that the film clearly wants to get its message across and there's just a tad bit too much preaching instead of actually delivering a strong story to get the point across. The entire cast offers up very good performances but I'd say Joan Blondell is pretty much wasted in her role. Tom Brown is very good as the one good reporter trying to learn the truth and Adrienne Dore is good as his partner who starts to get a big head for fame. Ames is extremely good as the man drawn into this mess. The film picks up a little speed towards the end and this includes a terrifically directed sequence where the reporters are confronted by someone they've damaged. I won't spoil what happens but it's quite powerful but it's a shame the rest of the film wasn't this strong.