L'Avocat criminel

During much of his career, Lee Tracy played one of two basic characters...the snappy talking newspaper man or a snappy talking lawyer. This is one of his lawyer films and the part seems like it was written with him (or perhaps Warren William) in mind.

In this story, Brandon (Tracy) is a defense lawyer whose only concern seems to be winning cases. One of his biggest and most influential clients is Larkin (Eduardo Ciannelli) and he assumes he knows and understands Brandon. He thinks Brandon is evil...and is more than willing to do whatever this mobster tells him to do. This isn't exactly the case...for Brandon it's all about winning. So, when Larkin pulls some strings and gets him appointed as the Assistant District Attorney (soon to become the DA), he thinks Brandon will throw cases at Larkin's request. But Brandon takes to this job like his last...and wins case after case and his main focus is setting himself up to become the state's next governor. So, when a case comes involving Larkin as the defendant, Larkin is sure the case will be botched....and Brandon might just do it. Or, could he be willing, for the first time, to actually do something because it's the right thing?

This is a very good film and Tracy and Ciannelli make it that way. The film has two female leads...though neither is especially strong nor well written. Instead, the film is all about these two inflexible men and their date with destiny. Well worth seeing...well directed and exciting. In fact, I only saw one thing I hated in the film and that was seeing Brandon cross examining a witness and badgering her until he confesses in front of the entire court her guilt...which ONLY happens on "Perry Mason" and in movies!

An ambitious, dynamic district attorney(Lee Tracy) is called upon to prosecute the mob boss(Eduardo Ciannelli)responsible for his lofty appointment. Most of the courtroom scenes are hard hitting and emotionally draining, other wise the story line is quite hackneyed and obvious. Other cast members of note are:Betty Lawford, Margot Grahame and Frank M. Thomas.

Not exactly film-noir and truthfully a subpar crime flick.

Following his sacking from MGM in 1934, motormouth comedian Lee Tracy struck a three-picture deal with Columbia, before making a heap of low-budget star vehicles over at RKO. Though the RKO movies vary in quality, they do acknowledge Tracy's standing as a uniquely gifted, fast-talking leading man near the peak of his powers, and are largely tailored to his talents.

One such RKO film is Criminal Lawyer (Christy Cabanne, 1937). It's in many ways a standard Tracy film and, as such, an absolute riot. Taking the basic set-up of The Nuisance - Tracy is a shyster whose success in the courtroom is based more on theatrics and tricks than conventional legal practice - the writers also toss in the gangster subplots familiar from Blessed Event and Advice to the Lovelorn. The result is very similar to the William Powell movie Lawyer Man, though bizarrely that 1932 film chose not to show any of the courtroom sequences to which it frequently referred.

The plot here has Tracy's barrister-come-showman becoming DA and trying to shake off his nefarious former sponsor. Hilariously, the tagline of the film gives away its entire storyline. What does the poster think it is - Halliwell's? Without telling you exactly what happens, I'll just say that as Tracy spars with hateful hood Eduardo Ciannelli, a woman (Margot Grahame) enters the picture, becoming Tracy's cook, secretary and confidante. That makes his sometime girlfriend (Betty Lawford) very jealous, setting up a slightly melodramatic final third that isn't as strong as the rest of the picture.

Erik Rhodes provides plenty of comic support playing his patented amorous Italian (as seen in The Gay Divorcée, Top Hat and The Smartest Girl in the World), but as usual it's Tracy's show. Just seeing him on screen makes me happy, since he's never tired, or lacklustre, or sub-par. He's always just magnificently, spectacularly Tracy-ish. When the script is sharp, he's impossibly good, but he also elevates so-so sequences. His interrogation of a woman accused of murder recalls his pyrotechnics in Blessed Event, talking Allen Jenkins through a trip to the electric chair, and he imbues the climactic scene with an improbable credibility as well as a compulsive watchability. My 21st Tracy film is flawed, certainly, but yet another must for fans of the actor.

Criminal Lawyer is a hackneyed romance mystery featuring Lee Tracy doing his Jimmy Walker act and the forgettable Margot Grahame showing why she is just that.

Barry Brandon (Tracy) is one hot shot confident lawyer when he runs afoul of mobster Denny Larkin. Looking to even the score Larkin backs Brandon into a corner by involving his girl Madge (Grahame). With the courtroom as backdrop the absurd climax commences.

Tracy's cocksure charm and elegance wear thin after awhile, his staccato barking turning to hot air that makes the film lose steam and ultimately derail with a cloying , tremulous Tracy yapping on mawkishly to the denouement. Grahame remains comatose most of the way, Ed Cianelli threatening and for some odd reason Erik Rhodes shows up as Top Hat refugee Rudolpho Tonetti (Bandini here) to mainline some man crush humor into the pic. Criminal is an apt description of this one.

What a shame that the great Lee Tracy was toiling in low rent pictures like this when he should've been a big star in his very prime at this stage in his career. There are glimpses of his motor-mouthed talent in the courtroom scenes and there is some electricity in his terse, mutually contemptuous confrontations with tight-lipped mob boss Eduardo Ciannelli, but the script is subpar and the editing (particularly during the climax) is downright dreadful. The film has no grab or soul and Tracy's moral reversal rings terribly false.