Smart Blonde is a 1937 American film directed by Frank McDonald. Glenda Farrell plays Torchy Blane, former showgirl, newspaper reporter on the police beat, and girlfriend of Homicide Detective Steve McBride (Barton MacLane). This is the first of nine Torchy Blane films, seven of them featuring Farrell, which ran until 1939.Detective novelist Frederick Nebel's reporter Torchy Blaine was a male news-hound named Kennedy. For Warner Bros. Smart Blonde, the character's name and gender were changed.