Note: One wonders if Gail Patrick and Otto Kruger were friends because 20 years after they worked together on this movie, as executive producer Gail Patrick Jackson approved him being hired three times to appear on the classic Perry Mason TV series. The director of this movie was Robert Florey, who was proud to be the king of B-pictures at Paramount. Disdaining the slapdash work of Poverty Row, he brought as much creative discrimination and experimentation to directing B-movies as the money-mad pressures of the studio system would allow.
1939 / 58 minutes
Tagline: “The Men who Make Murder Safe”
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Otto Kruger is a shyster lawyer for gangster Sidney Toler. Kruger is disbarred for being involved in the murder of a reformer. Settling in the natural landing spot for hustlers and charlatans, he then lures small-town lawyer Gail Patrick into the big bad city, dangling a position in a criminal law practice run by his henchman. Will square-shooting Patrick discover that her idealism is being exploited, her talents abused? Will she find her way to the DA’s office to prosecute malefactors with Robert Preston?
It's odd that though third on the billing Kruger is almost every scene. He suavely steals the show in a confident performance supported by a rich voice and snappy suits on his rail-thin build. Gail Patrick gets to wear fancy duds, accessories, and hats. She gamely does her best with bad lines like “I was dazzled by my own success so I didn’t notice what was going on.” A young Robert Preston has a singer’s smooth voice like Kruger. He does a creditable job as a determined prosecutor who “eats nails for breakfast.” Taking on this part just before playing the notorious Chinese detective, Sidney Toler balances an unidentifiable “European” accent with a repressed violence that we expect in an oily mob boss. He arrogantly calls everybody “My little brain trust,” “Boys and girls,” and “Sweetheart.”
On her own smart and fearless Gail Patrick can’t solve the problems of a confused culture that seems unsure if women ought to be allowed out of the house, much less practice criminal law. “You ought to settle down and raise and family,” hectors her aunt whom she lives with. “Raising a family is pretty exciting.” “Why don’t you give up criminal law,” Robert Preston presses her. “It isn’t for a girl like you!” “Smart enough to ride on her looks,” observes Preston’s cynical boss, “Just like a woman.” The DA team predicts Patrick will do well in front of a jury since they are in a state that does not allow women to sit on a jury. The reference may be to Illinois, the last high-population northern state to modernize its system in - drum roll - 1939.
Some actions don’t make sense. It’s not clear why attention is carefully drawn to Toler taking a secretary’s pencil; is he just asserting power by stealing it or is he superstitious that the pencil retains the incriminating information it wrote? It seems strange for a criminal defense lawyer to express sincere dismay that the prosecutor didn’t seem to “appreciate” her argument and to ask the assistant DA in court “Why do you keep objecting all the time,” given our adversarial system of opposing sides arguing cases in court. As for the assassination, no secretaries, no clerks, no security guards, no cops are stationed in the outer office of the DA of a big city. And instead of throwing the murder weapon in the river, the killer and his cohorts leave the gun lying around where Patrick can find it. Sigh.
The script best serves the secretary to the crooked lawyer, Abbey (Helen MacKellar). She correctly predicts that the corny harmonica playing of a goon will land them in trouble. When a hambone actor instructs her on the story of Pygmalion and Galatea, she throws the more appropriate example Dr. Frankenstein and his monster into his face. When she warns the brain trust that Patrick’s character is no fool, Da Boyz laugh it off as one woman’s dislike and jealousy of a smarter woman.
The movie was directed by film noir pioneer Robert Florey so its look is the reason to spend an hour watching this, should fate permit. Though this is an early example of the style, the elements are in place. The subjective camera on Toler makes him look ominous. Scenes have wonderful interiors like lobbies of small-town hotels and imposing big-city courtrooms with blacks, whites, and grays and curious angles (the print at IA is VG).
Cool beyond my ability to describe is an all too brief
scene of a jury room with two round ceiling lamps above the sweaty yelling
members (all men). In offices, background
windows (sometimes floor to ceiling) provide striking light, with shadows of
slats on the wall. Conversations are artistically framed in front of three
different fireplaces. In confrontations pairs of characters move in and out of
shadow. Brunette Patrick must have been covered in pounds of powder because her
pale skin not only contrasts with her hair, but in a backless gown in a
nightclub she seems to pop, like one of Edison’s vacuum bulbs.
Other
Gail Patrick Movies: Click on the title to go to the review
·
If
I Had a Million
·
The
Phantom Broadcast
·
The
Murders in the Zoo
·
Death
Takes a Holiday
·
The
Crime of Helen Stanley
·
Murder
at the Vanities
·
The
Preview Murder Mystery
·
My
Man Godrey
·
Murder
by Pictures
·
Artists
and Models
·
King
of Alcatraz
·
Wives
Under Suspicion
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