Torchy Blane

Torchy Blane is a fictional female reporter starring in a series of films in the 1930s. A total of nine films were produced by Warner Bros. between 1937 and 1939. The Torchy Blane film series were popular second features during the later 1930s and were mixtures of mystery, action, adventure, and fun.

During the pre-World War II period, newspaper reporter was one of the few roles in American cinema that positively portrayed women as intelligent, competent, self-reliant, and career-oriented -- virtually equal to men. Of these role models, Torchy Blane, a smart, beautiful, wisecracking female reporter was perhaps the best-known. The typical plot of movies featuring the character have the resilient, fast-talking Torchy solving a crime (the central element of the film's plot) before her less-than-perceptive lover, loud-mouthed police detective Steve McBride, can.

In 1936, Warner Bros. began to develop an adaptation of the MacBride and Kennedy stories by detective novelist Frederick Nebel. For the film version, Kennedy is changed to a woman named Teresa "Torchy" Blane and is now in love with MacBride's character. Torchy was loosely based on Kennedy. She was also more compatible with the Hays code, than a faithful on-screen adaptation of Kennedy would have been.

The first film was based on Nebel's Macbride and Kennedy story "No Hard Feelings". The story was later adapted again as the 1941 film A Shot in the Dark. Director Frank MacDonald immediately knew who he wanted for the role of Torchy Blane. Glenda Farrell had already played hard-boiled reporters in earlier Warner Bros. films, Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) and Hi, Nellie! (1934). She was quickly cast in the first Torchy Blane movie, Smart Blonde, with Barton MacLane playing detective Steve McBride. Farrell and MacLane would co-star in seven of the nine Torchy Blane films by Warner Bros. Smart Blonde was released on January 2, 1937. The film was a surprise hit and Warner Bros. made eight more movies from 1937 to 1939.

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