The Girl in the News is a 1940 British thriller film directed by Carol Reed and starring Margaret Lockwood, Barry K. Barnes and Emlyn Williams.

Her malice is aggravated by chronic insomnia; the nurse won’t give her sleeping pills on demand.

Anne is hired to care for the wheelchair-bound Edward Bentley, whose wife Judith is plotting with her lover, Mr. Tracy, the butler.

In Doctor Threadgrove’s presence, Judith Bentley instructs Anne to put the Somenol tablets in her writing desk cabinet.

At the theater intermission, Steve goes to get refreshments and encounters his roommate, Bill Mather, a policeman, who is leaving to investigate a murder at Camthorpe where Bentley has been poisoned.

At Camthorpe the maid tells Steve that the butler, nicknamed “Don Juan” by the staff, takes on airs above his station.

Believing all lost, Judith takes a poison tablet from her purse and makes a sworn statement before dying that Anne was framed.

Gilliat later recalled: He [Reed] seemed to be an interpreter rather than a creator; he followed the screenplay quite closely rather than bringing forth original ideas of his own.

"[4] The film was originally meant to star Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave, who had just appeared together in The Lady Vanishes.

On the film's initial release the reviewer for The New York Times wrote, "bring out the smelling salts, folks.

"[6] More recently the Radio Times called the film a "workmanlike if rather transparent murder mystery";[7] and Allmovie wrote: "this early Carol Reed effort tended to be dismissed or ignored by its director in later interviews.