WHIPSAW. MGM, 1935. Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy. Director: Sam Wood.

   There are other members of the cast, but the only other name I recognized was John Qualen, and he was so far down in the list, I decided to mention only the two leading stars. They’re all that’s needed, though, to make this the best movie I’ve seen in quite some time. If it ever comes on in your area, don’t miss this one.

   She’s a lady crook, working for a gang of jewel thieves, He’s a cop, pretending to be a tough hoodlum to gain her confidence. He doesn’t know she’s onto him, but she needs him to help shake the members of a rival gang who are on her trail.

   It’s a pleasure to watch a movie written with some intelligence behind it. The people in it are thinking, and none of the usual ploys in your usual run-of-the-mill crime caper seem to work as well here as they do in every other film you sit down to see. What’s more, it may be corny, but it’s also a pleasure to watch a picture in which even the crooks (well, some of them) have moral standards.

   And it’s not enough that Myrna Loy can act cool and disinterested and obviously be falling deeply in love at the same time; she’s also beautiful and charming, and she simply fills the screen with her presence every minute she’s on it, Spencer Tracy tries hard, with an intensely casual portrayal of a policeman caught between his job and a woman he begins to care for more and more, but I think this is the lady’s picture, all the way.

– Reprinted from Mystery*File 26, December 1990.