En contra de su voluntad

This is for against her Another installment of the incident series. A young girl is being used as a guinea pig at a psychiatric clinic against her will. Judge Bell is totally against helping her but Cobb puts his foot down. It takes a lot of work but Mr. Cobb finds the proof he needs to help this girl. James Welch Henderson Arkansas 4/29/21.

This is the second movie in the "Incident" trilogy starring Walter Matthau and Harry Morgan. It was not as good as the first one, but much better than the third. In this film, Judge Bell has gone into private practice in Baltimore and recruits Harmon Cobb to be his partner. The judge gives him a good salary, a house and a car, but no interesting cases.

Mr. Cobb discovers one, however, when a stranger in a diner follows him after he leaves and begs him to get a young woman out of a state mental hospital. (Mr. Cobb was telling lawyer jokes in the diner, so his occupation was obvious.) Judge Bell is against taking the case since the state will have to be sued, but his partner won't back down.

There are some very distressing scenes in the hospital, including what the young woman looks like, but it's still TV type distressing. While there are two evil money-making psychiatrists in the movie, there is one heroic one, too, trying to stop the abuse and lies. Barton Heyman gives a touching performance as an orderly in the mental hospital who had been there since he was three. The reason he was committed? He was a "feeble child".

While the case is going on, Harmon Cobb also has to deal with his daughter-in-law dating for the first time since her husband was killed in the war. (She and his granddaughter moved to Baltimore with him.) He is not doing a very good job dealing with the matter, because it's forcing him to deal with the death of his son. The regulars in these movies are all likable characters, and these movies are good when the script is good.

Delbert Mann is one of the greatest directors of our time, an Oscar-winning director for "Marty," and a pioneer of great television. In this film his skills are as good as they get. His work with Walter Matthau demonstrates how he understands Matthau's intelligence and depth. Mann's choice of Susan Blakely is notable because she's got the brilliance as an actress to be able to hold her own with someone like Matthau. This is an example of what TV Movies should be and can be if the talent is both on the page and on the screen.

As there have already been several comments written about this movie, I'd like to add some information that seem to be unknown to all the comment authors so far.

One of them praises Delbert Mann for giving role to Susan Blakely. This certainly wasn't Mann's choice, because "Against Her Will" is a sequel of 1990. movie "The Incident" where Blakely plays the same role of Matthau's daughter-in-law. As death of her husband (Matthau's son) is a part of the first movie's plot, it is natural that her new found love in the sequel has to be reflected in her relation to her father-in-law.

The last movie in trilogy "Incident in a Small Town" was also made by Mann, but this time without Blakely (and without child SF star Ariana Richards playing her daughter).

The first movie wasn't made by Mann, but by another well-known director (working mostly for TV) Joseph Sargent.

Walter Matthau delivers a stunning portrayal of a near defunct attorney who takes a desperate case. In this film, Matthau's character must gain the release of severely troubled patient of the "corrupt" state mental hospital of Maryland. With a performance such as this, many must wonder why Matthau settles for such poor roles on the big screen.