This production seems to get tepid reviews but it deserves a bit better than that. Tracy is a recovering alcoholic who returns to criminal law to defend the neighbors' son.
A nice cast, with many familiar faces, and Tracy delivers in his own quietly flabby and unpretentious way. His character finds the trial difficult. Lying witnesses work against him. He begins to forget lines and behaves clumsily in front of the court. He takes a couple of belts. He bribes a witness. Things fall apart; the center can't hold.
Then he makes a final, self-sacrificial attempt to redeem himself and save the defendant whom he knows to be innocent.
It's well photographed too, sly and dark, and Sturges' direction is efficient and to the point.
It's rather a good film. Courtroom dramas have to be really BAD to be bad. This one isn't bad.
A nice cast, with many familiar faces, and Tracy delivers in his own quietly flabby and unpretentious way. His character finds the trial difficult. Lying witnesses work against him. He begins to forget lines and behaves clumsily in front of the court. He takes a couple of belts. He bribes a witness. Things fall apart; the center can't hold.
Then he makes a final, self-sacrificial attempt to redeem himself and save the defendant whom he knows to be innocent.
It's well photographed too, sly and dark, and Sturges' direction is efficient and to the point.
It's rather a good film. Courtroom dramas have to be really BAD to be bad. This one isn't bad.