Illegal puts Edward G. Robinson through more perils than Pauline ever suffered. A tenacious District Attorney on his way to the governor's mansion, he resigns when a man he had sent to the electric chair proves innocent. But the civil practice he hopes to undertake goes bust, and he takes to the bottle (a plot development which goes nowhere).
Down and out, he defends a fellow inmate he encounters in a holding cell, and decides to apply his legal acumen to becoming a sharp, high-priced criminal attorney. To get off a guilty client, he grandstands in court by downing a bottle of poison placed in evidence, only to rush off to have his stomach pumped. (This particular ploy was originated by George Brent in 1940's The Man Who Talked Too Much.) He's such a brilliant mouthpiece he comes to the attention of civic crime boss Albert Dekker, whose blandishments he tries to resist.
Meanwhile, back at the D.A.'s office, he's left behind his protégé Nina Foch (looking matronly), whom he had taken under his wing when her father, an old mentor of his, passed away. Though he harbors romantic feelings for her, he gives his blessing when she announces her marriage to a young, ambitious lawyer, Hugh Marlowe. But a series of leaks from the office concerning Dekker's activities brings suspicion on all three. Ultimately, Robinson finds himself defending Foch for murder, during which Jayne Mansfield, Dekker's mistress, sashays to the witness stand in a wasp-waisted black outfit, replete with picture hat.....
The fast and too complicated plot takes a few pointless and baffling turns. Though on the talky side, there's a high quotient of gunplay. Still, it's absorbing. Robinson, still in his early-50s string of B-pictures owing to his guilt-by-association in the wake of the anti-Communist crusade, holds everything together with his bag of old tricks. And credit must go also to director Lewis Allen, who somehow brought a distinctiveness to several of his films which otherwise might have passed unnoticed: Desert Fury, Chicago Deadline, Suddenly. It's hard to point out just how, but he brought some of it to Illegal, too.
