Jean Arthur as Wilhelmina Clark
in "The Whole Town's Talking" (1935)
In "The Whole Town's Talking", directed by John Ford, Jean Arthur and Edward G. Robinson play office drones working for an ad agency. In this scene, they've been hauled into police headquarters because they were out on the street and Robinson has the bad luck to look exactly like a notorious gangster named Killer Mannion (also played by Edward G. Robinson). They're being questioned in separate rooms, and when the cops tell Jean, "Mannion's confessed," she sees right through their ploy and decides to have a little fun with them, striking a mock-tough pose, complete with a cigarette that she never takes out of her mouth. She knows her timid pal from the office is anything but a criminal, and the cops have messed up, so whey they ask her a series of rapid-fire questions about a long list of robberies and murders, she responds to each one by saying, "That was Mannion." She's punking them, and they're buying it, and she's enjoying herself, and the cigarette never leaves her lips.
Arthur would soon become Frank Capra's favorite leading lady, in movies like "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" and "Mr Deeds Goes To Town", but this was the movie that got her noticed, after a decade of mostly B pictures and supporting parts. And the thing in this film that put her over the top? You might say "That was Mannion."
