No, it's not an expose into the private lives of celebrities but yet another gritty newspaper yarn purporting to tell it how it is! "Five Star Final" of the year before couldn't be bettered as it told the story of just how low some yellow journals would stoop in their efforts to sell papers. Lila Lee made the changeover from silent to talkies incredibly well - she made an astonishing number of talkies in the 1929-1930 period but then it all came crashing down as she was hospitalized for T.B. and then got the reputation for being unreliable. Before that happened she proved that she could emote with the best of them and "Exposure" finds her as Doris Corbin, a publisher trying to keep afloat a struggling paper. Lila didn't have that much to do - initially she is centre stage as the owner of "The Dispatch" who through falling circulation is on the verge of selling out to rival paper "The Herald" run by cold blooded John Ward (weasley Tully Marshall) but when Andy Bryant talks his way into the City Editor's job, Doris is relegated pretty much to the back ground. Bryant (Walter Byron) breathes new life into the paper, bringing it kicking and screaming into the twentieth century - "tell the story in one word and make it scream"!!!
When a young society girl (unbilled "Our Gang" star Mary Kornman) is involved in a "road house" scandal, Doris steps in and pulls rank to kill the story. Andy feels she is a "bleeding heart" and resigns but when he is left for dead by gangsters, who are not impressed by being the targets of a series of exposes the paper is running, he sets in motion a plan to put head crook (Bryant Washburn) behind bars.
The movie is nothing out of the box, in fact it is really Walter Byron's picture and also does try to highlight the detrimental effect alcohol can have on a hard working reporter. Andy's appearance at the Dispatch is all due to going on a bender in New York and waking up in a California railway station and at one stage a hired stooge tries to push Andy off the wagon (he has sworn to Doris he will not drink while he is working for her paper) by leaving a bottle of the "finest hooch" within easy access. But as with a lot of these fly by night studios, the message is lost in the mediocre story.
Mary Doran has probably more to do than Lila and she makes her small role count. She is Gerry, Ward's daughter and while happy to make a play for Andy just can't give up her "road house" capers.
When a young society girl (unbilled "Our Gang" star Mary Kornman) is involved in a "road house" scandal, Doris steps in and pulls rank to kill the story. Andy feels she is a "bleeding heart" and resigns but when he is left for dead by gangsters, who are not impressed by being the targets of a series of exposes the paper is running, he sets in motion a plan to put head crook (Bryant Washburn) behind bars.
The movie is nothing out of the box, in fact it is really Walter Byron's picture and also does try to highlight the detrimental effect alcohol can have on a hard working reporter. Andy's appearance at the Dispatch is all due to going on a bender in New York and waking up in a California railway station and at one stage a hired stooge tries to push Andy off the wagon (he has sworn to Doris he will not drink while he is working for her paper) by leaving a bottle of the "finest hooch" within easy access. But as with a lot of these fly by night studios, the message is lost in the mediocre story.
Mary Doran has probably more to do than Lila and she makes her small role count. She is Gerry, Ward's daughter and while happy to make a play for Andy just can't give up her "road house" capers.