One Fatal Hour

United Broadcasting Company owner Bertram C. Reynolds (Robert Middlemass) decides to forgo quality to broadcast more profitable sensationalist programming. He instructs the cynical programming manager, Sherry Scott (Humphrey Bogart), to air a serial based on the decades-old Gloria Pembroke murder case. Scott goes along despite the objections of his loyal secretary, Alma Ross (Beverly Roberts). Gloria Pembroke was found to be justified in shooting her first husband, and is now remarried under the name Martha Carstairs (Helen MacKellar). She and her devoted husband, Jim (Henry O'Neill), are about to marry their daughter, Edith (Linda Perry), who knows nothing of her mother's past, to Malcolm Sims Jr. (Carlyle Moore Jr.), the son of a prominent family. When Martha and Jim are alerted to the upcoming broadcast, they seek help, but mistakenly talk to Dr. Martin Leavenworth (Harry Hayden), a devious UBC reporter who acts like a clergyman. Martha appeals to Reynolds to stop the broadcast, but he refuses. Malcolm's parents cancel the wedding when they hear the broadcast, but Malcolm stands by Edith. In despair, Martha drinks poison. Jim finds her body, but sends Malcolm and Edith to be married without telling them, and then kills himself. Scott tells Reynolds the FCC might now investigate them, but before that, a distraught Edith demands to know why they all "killed" her mother.