Skunkyrate Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Nessieldwi Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Ava-Grace Willis Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

vincentlynch-moonoi I always liked Edward G. Robinson, but I don't like the typical crime dramas he so often appeared in. So when I found him to not be a gangster, I reveled in his film persona. This is one of those films. Yes, there's an element of crooks here...but it's not Robinson; Robinson is, in fact, the good guy here.And, this is a better film than I had anticipated. Robinson plays a hard-boiled newspaperman who, after WWI, starts his own newspaper. He plays a bit fast and furious with the facts, and sometimes makes news happen, but at heart he tries to make things right. Unfortunately, in order to start his own newspaper he had to take in a silent partner -- a "businessman" who is more a hood than businessman -- Edward Arnold. Ultimately, Robinson deeply regrets the partnership and decides to go after Arnold...at his own peril, and at the peril of one of his young reporters.It's good, but it's not all good. Unfortunately, Laraine Day (who is sort of secretly in love with Robinson) lets us down with acting that is just blah through the first part of the film, but nearer the end of the film she does quite nicely. Lately I've seen Day in a number of films, and while once in a while I thought she was very good, mostly I am finding her to be just middling. But Robinson and Arnold make up for that with some fine acting.In terms of the supporting cast, Marsha Hunt, whom I didn't really recognize, but who had a fairly long career in film, does nicely as the girl in love with the young reporter, but who has cozied up to Arnold to advance her singing career and to try to save her father from scandal. William T. Orr does satisfactorily as the young reporter. Don Beddoe is good as one of the men in the newsroom.I can't decide whether I like the ending or not. If you're expecting a happy ending...well...you'll just have to wait and see...they keep you guessing until the very last minute.

Alex da Silva Edward G Robinson (Corey) returns from the war and is offered his old job back at the newspaper he used to work for. However, he has bigger ideas and wants to run his own newspaper now. The only way he can get financing to start his business is to come to a deal with gangster Edward Arnold (Lambert). They become 50/50 partners in the business - the unholy partners of the title. Robinson is one of these do-gooder types who wants to clean up the city and so, when Arnold - his financier and number 1 gangster in town - tells him to back off from a story, he disobeys him coz he wants to see justice done. What a knob-head. He is basically begging to be killed off. Whether he does get what's coming to him is up to fate.This is pretty predictable stuff with a corny ending. Robinson is good as always but Arnold is better. Thank God he is in the film. He has a sort of Raymond Burr deep voice and big thuggery frame and makes a good baddie. The rest of the cast are OK, although William T. Orr (Tommy) is slightly annoying at times. The film is not particularly good and there is no need to see it again. It finishes and then you sling it onto the junk pile - if you have any sense. Robinson's character is unconvincing and the final line is pure cheesiness. It's not a disaster but there's not a lot to say about it. Everyone has done better and it's a forgettable affair.

itsnotmike Another great Edward G. Robinson performance in an entertaining film about a hard driven newspaper man,with fine performances all around. However,what gets me is this: Why place a film in a period setting and ignore aspects of that setting? In this case,this 1941 film was set in 1919. Besides a few indiscretions like inappropriate hairstyles on the women,at one point Marsha Hunt sings After You've Gone in a 1940's swing style with a big band(this is at about 15 years before the "Big Band Era"!) Funny...this film was made only twenty years after the story takes place...no one remembered what things were like? I am reminded of a similar problem(although much worse)in the Gene Krupa Story,where we had "boppy"soloists in the "twenties"! If film makers want contemporary hairstyles,music,etc.,why make a period film?

bmacv This fleet and raffish newspaper melodrama was released the same year as Citizen Kane and in its far more modest way is almost as much fun. Like Kane (and dozens of ‘30s potboilers before it, most churned out by ink-stained wretches come west for a piece of the Hollywood action), it's a cautionary reminder of the roughhouse beginnings of the Fourth Estate.Reporter Edward G. Robinson, overseas winning The Great War, started a peppy servicemen's paper The Doughboy. When he returns to New York, he wants to run the same sort of rag – a tabloid for the straphangers. `The war's done things to people,' he tells his old-school editor. `We've made life cheap. and that makes emotions cheap...There's no privacy left...Keyholes are to look through.'But getting start-up money proves hard, and he ends up striking a bargain with big-time gangster Edward Arnold, who'll stay the silent partner. But when Robinson's let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may style threatens Arnold's interests, the partners become adversaries. `What people want to put in papers is advertising,' Robinson lectures Arnold. `What they want to keep out is news.' After Arnold tries to strong-arm his way into control of the paper, Robinson vows to put him out of business.LeRoy was an old hand at filming quick-and-dirty dramas that rested, however lightly, on timely social issues. So he predictably does as well (if not a mite better) as he did a decade earlier with Robinson in Five Star Final. Other players include Laraine Day, Marsha Hunt and William T. Orr, but Robinson and Arnold dominate, as they should. The story takes a clumsy and fanciful turn or two near the end (with Robinson suddenly delivering a reverent paean to the press at odds with everything he stood for), though even these twists echo big stories of the roaring ‘20s. The closing sentiment of Unholy Partners, however, is a dubious one: That the `tabloid age is over.' A pass through the supermarket checkout aisle or a few clicks of the television remote show how laughable that prediction was.