L'heure mystérieuse

Director Sam Wood can't get much cinematic life into this courtroom drama about a mild-mannered man (Dudley Digges) accused of pushing his wife off the Dover cliffs. Barrister Franchot Tone is the prosecutor who discovers that a woman witness can prove the man innocent--and little does he suspect that that woman is his wife (Loretta Young).

Trouble is there are far too many interior scenes with lots of expository talk so the film, despite a brief running time, moves at a sluggish pace without ratcheting up much suspense.

But Loretta Young is very beautiful (at 23), poised and completely charming as the wife who knows too much. She, Franchot Tone and Roland Young carry much of the film, but there's good support from Jessie Ralph, Lewis Stone and Henry Daniell (who figures prominently in the film's conclusion).

For a story that involves blackmail and murder, it's much too stage bound for comfort, but worth watching to see Loretta Young at her loveliest giving a very capable performance.

Most entertaining movie. Watched recently on TCM. Good innovative plot, if a bit convoluted. Some fine acting... Never a dull moment... Very good court scenes with good dialogue. London of the 1930'a well captured, particularly the cars, streets and traffic, also very good house interiors. Recommended for a step back in time....

...and you may find it so too. Not because the film is bad, but because the film starts out with a truly evil person tormenting a very good person (Loretta Young as dutiful wife Lady Helen Dudley Dearden) relentlessly and even seeming to enjoy it. Lady Helen must pay two thousand pounds to a blackmailer to prevent him from revealing love letters that her husband wrote years before they were married to a woman who was married at the time - to the blackmailer. Lady Helen's husband (Franchot Tone as Sir Alan Dearden) is about to be made attorney general, and any scandal would wreck that chance. So she pays. However, this decision to pay up soon embroils her in a murder case - not as a suspect but as a witness. After she comes forward to tell what she knows to free an innocent man of one murder, she unknowingly implicates her husband in another murder. The blackmailer then reenters her life and torments her some more. Yes, the ending is a bit fantastic, but getting there is an interesting ride with this being a very satisfying thriller. The central theme is how hard it can be to prove a negative and how much people - and the legal system - often want to believe the worst.

Hard to believe that Loretta Young is only 23 at this point. She has all the poise and sophistication of a woman quite a bit older than that. But that was true all the way back to her silent days so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I'd recommend this one highly, just don't be surprised if you find yourself hissing at the blackmailer villain in this one like in the old silent days. He really is an awful character.

Loretta Young always managed to bring a certain cool quality to her movies and has come to epitomize the feminine beauty and elegance of the 1930s. It's hard to tell if The Unguarded Hour would've turned out quite as well without an actress of her charm to divert the viewer from the plot holes. The story itself is very entertaining and amusing, once you come to accept their motives and not ask questions such as "why on earth doesn't she tell everything to her husband and get it over with?" But of course, a woman of such beauty and elegance (there, I said it again) can't be wrong, can she? And we wouldn't have had a movie to start with.

If you manage to get a hold of this rarely seen gem which hasn't been released on DVD as yet, you're quite sure to spend a very enjoyable time, trying to guess the perpetrator of the villainy and feasting your eyes on the rosy cheeks and elegant gowns of the damsel in distress.

The ever graceful and dynamic Loretta Young had a deservedly long movie career from the silent era until the early 1950's. She then turned to television with the popular "Letter to Loretta," where she is well remembered for her entrance sashaying through a door wearing a swirling skirt. "The Unguarded Hour" is from her early talky days in Hollywood before going on to win an Oscar for her fantastic performance in "The Farmer's Daughter."

Loretta plays one of her usual roles as Lady Helen Dudley Dearden a dutiful wife who stands by her husband, the debonair Franchot Tone as Sir Alan Dearden who is on his way to the top of the legal profession in England about to be appointed the youngest attorney general ever. Then appears a blackmailer Hugh Lewis played with his usual aura of chicanery by Henry Daniell. Lady Dearden must pay for some indiscreet old love letters written by Sir Alan to a lover before he met m'lady or the letters will be made public possibly destroying him professionally. Lady Dearden unwittingly finds herself a mystery woman in one of her husband's murder cases. The plot thickens until Sir Alan himself becomes a suspect in the same case. All must be unraveled with a few surprises along the way before the somewhat hasty ending to a well made film.

As with most movies based on plays, there is too much verbiage from time to time but director Sam Wood is able to make things move faster than many similar type vintage mysteries from the same period.