Five Star Final | Reflection

Ethical Or Not? The Million Dollar Question 

Warner Bros

Five Star Final

The 1931 film Five Star Final tackles the ethical concerns of journalism head on. Back when journalism was just entering the Penny Press era, a shift happened. Now stories were told to gain the most attention because attention equals profit. Money was the driving force behind any decisions during this time. People could become rich beyond their wildest dreams by creating Press Empires. Now they don't have to please a politician or a king. There was much more freedom when it came to journalism. But with that freedom comes more responsibility. Suddenly there are morals involved. This film tackles when profit ignores morals.

Warner Bros

Five Star Final

The film follows the New York Evening Gazette as they are desperate for their next attention grabbing headline. Head editor Joseph Randall is pushed by every person above him to revive an old twenty year cold case. He is extremely against the idea at first. He knows reviving this story will get some hypothetical blood on his hands. Little did he know, the deeper he went, there would be blood on his hands. Not wanting to lose his job, Randall caves and begins investigating this case. When the audience first meets Nancy, we see someone who seems like she could never be capable of murder. She is happily married to someone else and her daughter is getting married soon. Randall realizes that there is no reason to disturb the happy family. But with the increase of Sensationalism or “Events and topics in news stories are selected and worded to excite the greatest number of readers and viewers. This style of news reporting encourages biased or emotionally loaded impressions of events rather than journalistic objectivity, and may cause a manipulation to the truth of a story.” Randall has to go ahead with the story. 

He becomes dedicated to digging up as much dirt on Nancy he can. This is really where any morals go out the window. He sends reporter T. Vernon Isopod undercover. Isopod disguises himself as a minister who wants to officiate Jenny’s wedding. Her parents blindly trust Isopod having no idea that their world is about to come crashing down. The story goes live the night before the wedding. It exposes how Nancy got away with murder.

The story was so traumatizing it results in the double suicide of Nancy Voorhees and Michael Townsend.

Warner Bros

Five Star Final

Michael, unable to live without Nancy, kills himself after she shoots herself due to the shame that came from the story being published.

Jenny is devastated by her parents' deaths, she goes straight to the New York Evening Gazette and threatens to shoot everyone in the building. Until her new husband talks her down.

This film does an amazing job detailing the shift between journalism in the Partisan Press Era versus the Penny Press Era. While usually not this dramatic. There are real consequences when journalists play with real people’s lives like Randall did in this film. Five Star Final does not serve as a warning for what will happen when sensational journalism becomes the norm. Since 1931 sensationalism has only become worse with things like clickbait.