Night Alarm

Bruce Cabot is happy when Judith Allen comes in to complain about his gardening column. He resigns it in favor of her and goes chasing fires. He soon discovers that industrialist/political kingpin H.B. Warner -- whom no one realizes is Miss Allen's father -- is behind the rash of fires that have been devastating the city recently.

This was directed by Spencer Gordon Bennett. Bennet's directorial career stretched back into the silents, and this movie indicates he never got out of it. Only Warner consistently gives his line readings any weight. Cabot manages to do so about a third of the time, and everyone else speak as if they are reading them phonetically off cards -- except for Sam Hardy, who seems to alternate his words with opening his eyes wide, like a sleepy frog.

Visually this movie is all right (reviews of the movie on the IMDb indicate it is worth seeing for Miss Allen in a spangly nightgown), but the director's tin ear for dialogue are a clear reason he never got out of the lower ranks of B movies and serials in the sound era.