Girl in the News

Girl in the News
Australian theatrical poster
Directed by	Carol Reed
Produced by	Edward Black executive Maurice Ostrer
Screenplay by	Sidney Gilliat
Based on	novel by Roy Vickers
Starring	Margaret Lockwood Barry K. Barnes Emlyn Williams
Music by	Louis Levy (uncredited) Charles Williams (uncredited)
Cinematography	Otto Kanturek
Edited by	R.E. Dearing
Production company	Twentieth Century Productions
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date	28 August 1940 (UK)
Running time	78 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Girl in the News is a 1940 British thriller film directed by Carol Reed and starring Margaret Lockwood, Barry K. Barnes and Emlyn Williams.

When her elderly patient is poisoned, innocent nurse Anne Graham is charged with murder, but is controversially acquitted by lawyer Stephen Farringdon. With the press and public opinion against her, Anne finds it difficult to get another job. It doesn't help that her own lawyer is suspicious. Changing her name she finds employment nursing wheelchair bound Edward Bentley. When Bentley is found dead, Scotland Yard detective Bill Mather arrests Anne, but lawyer Farringdon fights again to prove her innocence.

The film was based on a best selling novel by Roy Vickers. It was originally meant to star Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave, who had just appeared in The Lady Vanishes together.

It marked the film debut of Michael Hordern who had one line, during a court scene, as a junior counsel to senior counsel played by Felix Aylmer.

The film was the first of several collaborations between director Carol Reed and writer Sidney Gilliat. Gilliat later recalled:

He [Reed] seemed to me an interpreter rather than a creator; he followed the screenplay quite closely rather than bringing forth original ideas of his own. I felt he was not at all interested in The Girl in the News, which I think was a pallid job. The chief obstacle was Carol's stage background - the couldn't really believe in the screenwriter. He needed close collaboration with a writer.

The Radio Times called it a "workmanlike if rather transparent murder mystery"; whereas The New York Times wrote, "bring out the smelling salts, folks. Another spellbinding English thriller has come to town!" and Allmovie said, "this early Carol Reed effort tended to be dismissed or ignored by its director in later interviews. Even so, the film is a worthwhile effort, with an intricate and sometimes amusing script by Sydney Gilliat."