I'm not sure if Johnson had already signed with MGM or did so afterwards, but this was a dandy role to open his film career with - the lead in one of WB's many hour long B features of the 30s and 40s. This has an alternate title of "Born For Trouble" which makes no sense given the subject matter.
A man who is convicted of killing a crusading district attorney is scheduled to die in the electric chair the following day. He tells his lawyer that if his sentence is not commuted to life that he will spill all he knows to the papers about the syndicate that hired him to commit the killing right before he is executed. He has previously promised "Scoop" of the Morning News that any singing he does will be an exclusive for him.
So the governor does not commute the guy's sentence. But for some reason "Scoop" is drunk the night of the execution, so reporter Gladys Wayne grabs the ticket to the execution out of Scoop's pocket and gives it to Bert Bell (Van Johnson), who wants to be hired by the Morning News, and tells him to come with her, this is his big chance. Why is it not her big chance? Why does Scoop decide to go on a bender on the biggest night of his career? We only have 60 minutes folks. You'll have to see "My Girl Friday" or "Come Fill the Cup" if you want answers to those kind of newspaper caper questions.
But the murderer isn't executed and doesn't have time to tell all to the tabloids, because according to the warden the man was struck by lightning through the window of his cell and killed. Bert Bell takes a photo of the dead man while nobody is looking, and when he gets back to the paper notes that the marks on the man definitely look like those of a man killed in the chair not killed by lightning. But people were in the actual death chamber testing the electric chair at the time the man died, so nobody could have dragged him in, electrocuted him, and dragged him back to his cell. So Bell is on the case to figure out what happened.
This is an action packed little B that kept my interest throughout. I'd highly recommend it not only because it is interesting but it shows Van Johnson had what it took from the very beginning.
