YOU CAN'T ESCAPE FOREVER (1942)

Breezy, well-paced second feature which is a fairly successful combination of crime thriller, newspaper story, romance, war propaganda, and comic relief. The opening segment is memorable: reporter Brenda Marshall, assigned to an execution, falls asleep and misses the pardon that arrives at the last minute, so she calls in a story saying the execution went on as scheduled. She winds up in hot water, as does her boss (George Brent), who is trying to get the goods on black marketeer Eduardo Ciannelli. Brent winds up demoted to writing the lovelorn column (a job no one wants), but he, Marshall, and sidekick Roscoe Karns get on Ciannelli's trail and discover that a lonely hearts club is a front for smuggling rubber, sugar, and other items which have been rationed in wartime. There are a couple of nice setpieces: the first is a lively brawl in the lonely hearts hall, and the second is a climactic car/truck chase. I've grown to like Marshall in her B movies and she carries this one quite well. Brent and Karnes are both good, and there is some standout support from Gene Lockhart, Erville Alderson, and Dick Elliott (the mayor on the Andy Griffith Show) who gets in a good line complaining about his assignment: "What a world! My wife makes battleships and I write lovelorn columns!" The title is meaningless (unless if refers to the future marriage of Brent and Marshall). [TCM]