Guilty Hands

Can Lionel Barrymore commit the perfect crime, for the sake of his daughter's honor, and get by with it? That's the question posed in this fine film which is NOT a "whodunit". Almost forgotten by nearly 7 decades of bigger, splashier movies, fans of crime films will not want to miss this little gem. Tightly plotted and suspenseful, GUILTY HANDS (yes, the title is important) rewards the thoughtful viewer.

Barrymore is great, as always. Kay Francis is a shady lady with too much past. Alan Mowbray - in a welcome departure from his comic butler roles - is suave and evil. Madge Evans, Polly Moran & Sir C. Aubrey Smith round out the supporting cast.

And what a great ending - unexpected and appropriate.

The opening sequence is stylish, unusual, disorienting. We don't know where we are or what is going on for a few minutes, and that reflects the film's morally disorienting territory. The premise is excellent. Barrymore is not "hammy" but commanding in a very natural way; he's playing a successful lawyer who is used to declaiming his arguments for an audience. The script employs daring ambiguities: we partly want to see the rich man murdered and Barrymore get away with it, yet Barrymore is clearly not a moral character himself, and the woman who insists upon justice for the man she loved is a "tramp" mistress who would have been willing to carry on her affair with the scoundrel after his marriage. What a crew! The magnetism of Barrymore and Francis in their moral contradictions keeps us riveted even through the parts that are like any other old-dark-house mystery. The ending is both preposterous and brilliant. You can look back and see how they set it up, yet it's very difficult to predict!

Pretty good murder story in a pre-code kind of way. Lionel Barrymore plays the local legal-eagle, as well as the irate father of the soon-to-be-bride, his daughter intending to marry his old friend, the biggest cad he knows. He tells the fellow he will murder him-justifiably in his mind-if won't give her up, and we see him do so. He even has arranged witnesses to "prove" he could not be the murderer, but the dead man's longtime love, played by a lovely Kay Francis, suspects him from the start.(Her scene at his body is not her best, however.) She then discovers the imprint on a piece of paper of a note the dead man had written before he was murdered, showing that Lionel had threatened to murder him. Of course Lionel is right there when she finds it, and explains in lawlerly detail how she will appear in a trial, since she is the beneficiary of the will.

So will Lionel be caught for his misdeed? Or is the one of the pre-codes when murderers do not have to pay for their crime? Lionel Barrymore gives his usual strong, if sometimes over-the-top, performance. Kay plays well in a major supporting role. The rest of the cast is adequate in their roles, but the film is mostly between Lionel and Kay.

District attorney Lionel Barrymore is angered when old friend Alan Mowbray says he plans to marry Barrymore's daughter Madge Evans. He tells Mowbray (in a surprisingly funny scene) that he will kill him if he tries to go through with the wedding and he can get away with it because he knows so much about murder. Well, Mowbray goes ahead and announces the engagement and, sure enough, Papa Lionel kills him. The question now is will he get away with it or will Mowbray's longtime lover Kay Francis figure him out?

Very nice direction and a particularly lively performance from Barrymore. Mowbray is only in the film for a brief time but he's sufficiently scuzzy to make you root for Lionel to get away with offing him. Kay Francis is good in her typically melodramatic fashion. The great C. Aubrey Smith is largely wasted in a minor role. Beautiful Madge Evans plays her part as well as can be expected given that the script makes her out to be a little bit of an airhead and a tease. She kisses her father on the mouth a lot and not just pecks either, which I found odd. But I've seen similar things in other films from the period so I'll just chalk that up to different sensibilities today. It's a good movie with an interesting twist at the end that some will probably see as a cop-out.

WS Van Dyke did a number of films well worth watching. Some even great, namely 'The Thin Man', 'The Prisoner of Zenda', 'I Love You Again' and much of 'San Francisco' (his Nelson Eddy/Jeanette MacDonald collaborations are also charming watches). 'Guilty Hands' sounded great in terms of the story (being a fan of the genre) and it is hard to resist a film with a cast this good, that leaves one psyched for seeing a twist for the ages as advertised and that has been reviewed this favourably.

'Guilty Hands' is another Van Dyke film well worth seeing and mostly lives up to high expectations, even if it is not one of my favourites of the genre and there are films with relatively similar concepts that are more successful in this regard. 'Guilty Hands' has Van Dyke's style all over it, the cast is reason to see it alone and there are so many things that were done right. Anybody that likes mysteries and noir-ish thrillers should find much to enjoy.

It is a great looking film, with some suitably unsettlingly inventive photography in the opening sequence. An opening sequence that gave me the chills and is brilliantly shot and edited, Van Dyke's accomplished style and technical efficiency shines the most in this scene. All without being cheap or rushed-looking. The lighting has a lot of atmosphere too and the production design is elegant yet suitably ominous. The music is moody and Van Dyke's direction is tight and accomplished.

As is much of the script. It is a little too talk-heavy, but the black humour which comes in heavy doses genuinely amuses and much of the script provokes thought. The story is compelling, with an intriguing mystery that keeps one guessing and has a good deal of suspense, it doesn't get too predictable and it doesn't get over-complicated either. Lionel Barrymore dominates 'Guilty Hands' without being over-dominant, he was never the most subtle of actors but he was always fun to watch and he is very much so here. Kay Francis is sensual and engages with the drama without being too theatrical. Alan Mowbray excels too against type, being effective at playing a sleaze to sinister effect.

By all means 'Guilty Hands' isn't perfect. As said, it is talk-heavy in places. Babs' change of character later on came over as too rushed and introduced in too out of the blue a way to ring true.

Despite the final twist actually being quite clever and definitely unexpected, the very end is rather too abrupt and towards the end it is a little too on the silly side.

Overall though, well done. 7/10