"One woman was to die at midnight!...another woman was to kill at the same hour...why?"
Jury foreman Edward Weldon's questioning leads to the death sentence for Ethel Saxon. His daughter Stella claims to have killed her lover, the gangster Garboni, just as Saxon was to sit in the electric chair.
Humphrey Bogart
Gar Boni
Sidney Fox
Stella Weldon
O. P. Heggie
Edward Weldon
Henry Hull
Nolan
Margaret Wycherly
Mrs. Weldon
Lynne Overman
Joe Biggers
Cora Witherspoon
Elizabeth McGrath
Richard Whorf
Arthur Weldon
Granville Bates
Richard McGrath
Jury foreman Edward Weldon's questioning leads to the death sentence for Ethel Saxon. His daughter Stella claims to have killed her lover, the gangster Garboni, just as Saxon was to sit in the electric chair.
Every expense has been spared with this truly mediocre crime drama. A woman is accused and convicted for murder, but as the evening before her comeuppance draws near, the foreman of the jury "Weldon" (OP Heggie) is being solicited to try and stop the execution. Quite what he was supposed to do is anyones guess, and so justice takes it's course. The plot, somewhat glacially, now moves on to a woman "Stella" (Sidney Fox) finding herself in a very similar situation - pleading a defence of crime passionnel. Guess what, though... she is the daughter of the aforementioned jury foreman. She has been charged with killing the rather unsavoury "Gar Boni" (Humphrey Bogart). Can she escape the same fate? The dialogue is delivered as if each were being individually cued, and despite his billing Bogart features hardly at all in what is otherwise a rather weakly directed and presented sob story in which I had no investment. Early talkie maybe, but all in all it's pretty unremarkable stuff.
An attorney defends a hoodlum of murder, using the oppressiveness of the slums to appeal to the court.
Holly Parker, the wife of a wealthy diplomat, is compromised by the accidental death of a man who has been romantically pursuing her. She is forced by her mother-in-law to assume a new identity in order to save the reputation of her husband and infant son. She wanders the world, trying to forget her heartbreak with the aid of alcohol and unsavory men. Eventually returning to the city of her downfall, she murders a blackmailer who threatens to expose her past. Amazingly, Holly is represented at her murder trial by her now adult son, who has become a public defender. In the hope of protecting her family, she refuses to reveal her real name and is known to the court as "Madame X".
Locked in her cell, a murderer reflects on the events that have led her to death row.
A crooked politician finds himself being accused of murder by a gangster from whom he refused help during a re-election campaign.
Convicted of manslaughter for a drunken driving accident, Kent Marlowe is sent to prison, where he meets vicious incarcerated figures who are planning an escape from the brutal conditions.
A corrupt D.A. with governatorial ambitions is annoyed by an investigative reporter's criticism of his criminal activities and decides to frame the reporter for manslaughter in order to silence him.
A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.
A brash young lawyer takes a short-term, high-paying job as bodyguard for a slick business exec being threatened by a former partner, and quickly realizes he may be in over his head.
A dark personal secret drives a young woman to use every man she encounters.
Alec Graham is sentenced to death for the murder of his girlfriend Jennie, with whom he spent a weekend at the English country home of the parents of his friend Brian Stanford. Alec’s father, David Graham, a not-so-successful writer and alcoholic who has neglected his son in the past, flies in from Canada to visit his son on death row. David then goes on a quest to try and clear his son’s name while battling “the bottle.”