The Women in His Life

Kent Barringer (Otto Kruger) is a self-assured cynical womanizing successful defense lawyer. He gets another guilty man off. He uses every trick to win his cases. He keeps a picture of an old flame to remind him that love is an illusion. He gets a case defending a supposed innocent murderer. He is shocked to find the victim to be his pictured ex.

This is a pre-Code drama. I really like the premise and the start. I would like a more dashing and younger lead. Otherwise, Otto Kruger is pretty good. I don't buy the doppelganger defense. Everybody has a doppelganger. Kent didn't actually prove anything. As for the big case, I thought he would do more investigating after the loss. The second half is not as compelling.

Otto Kruger is a top defense lawyer. He's also a ladies' man who works his adoring staff of secretary Una Merkel, co-counsel Ben Lyon, and investigator Roscoe Karns hard. He has taken on the defense of Samuel S. Hinds at the behest of Irene Hervey, when he learns something startling about an old flame. He goes on a bender and has a breakdown on top of that. Lyon takes over the case, and Hinds is convicted and sentenced to death. Kruger says he'll get him acquitted on appeal.... and then does nothing that anyone can see.

It's practically a one-man show for Kruger in various modes; during his recovery from his breakdown he gives the impression of a man who has aged thirty years on sheer acting chops. Even the usually rambunctious Karns and Miss Merkel don't do much to distract from him. While there are some issues in the denouement sequences, George Seitz acquits himself well in his first credit as a director at MGM, by sticking to Kruger.

This is part love story and part courtroom drama. Otto Kruger plays, Kent Barringer, a supremely confident trial lawyer who just can't lose, but is ultimately selfish and soulless. A woman begs him to work Pro Bono on the case of her father who is accused of murder, but after promising to do so, Kruger ignores her. When he finally gets around to reviewing the facts of the case, he realizes he is connected with it in a very personal way, and this realization ultimately leads him to a new approach on life.

The film is entertaining but a bit too melodramatic and fantasy-bound for my tastes. Kruger is proficient in his role and great fun to watch. I look forward to seeing more of his work since is the first film I've ever seen him in. The supporting cast does good work yet there aren't any standouts.

Fun Fact: This is the earliest on-screen appearance of a pinball machine.

Character actor Otto Kruger (48 and looking a decade older, at least by contemporary standards) stars as a rich and successful womanizing criminal defense attorney. His latest affair is with a typical blonde pickup (Isabel Jewell) who claims her love is sincere but Kruger is indifferent and basically thinks of her as little more than a bedroom toy. Kruger is equally blasé about the guilt or innocence of his clients and knows most of them are guilty, including his latest, painted matron Irene Franklin, "the Tiger Woman" as the tabloids call her.

Young Irene Hervey begs for Kruger to take her father, a man falsely accused of murdering his promiscuous wife, as a client but Kruger cannot be bothered, however when he finds Hervey can be of some benefit in Franklin's case he promises to help her. After trying to renege on his word, Kruger is shocked to discover that Hervey's murdered stepmother is in fact is the old flame of his past, the woman he never got over and the root of his hardened heart. Devastated to learn of her death, Kruger goes on a bender that leaves him near death and unable to defend Hervey's father, who is ultimately sentenced to the electric chair. Sobering up, Kruger plots to trap the real killer but will there be enough time to stop the electrocution?

This is a fairly good little melodrama done with typical MGM polish even if it's clearly a minor picture for the studio. Kruger is quite superb for most of the film, utterly unsympathetic in the first half and a sudden, effective change of character later on with splendid work as a drunk with pneumonia. Unfortunately, the last reel is pretty ridiculous (if effectively tense) and smacks more of a lurid poverty row programmer than the classy MGM production it had been up until this point.

Una Merkel is second-billed presumably because she was the only MGM contractee in the film however her role is fairly minor although she does have some classic Una wisecracks and as always is an asset to any film. The movie offers a nice role for character-starlet Isabel Jewell in one of her more sympathetic parts. Ben Lyon, entering the downswing of his career, is good as Kruger's junior partner.

The movie is stolen by Irene Franklin as the plump and painted good-time "Tiger woman" on trial. I've never heard of or seen Franklin before, she apparently was a big vaudeville star in the early decades of the 20th century and here in 1933 looks years younger than her 57 years. She's sensational in her "Mary Boland meets Marjorie Rambeau" type of role and it's incredible that this film didn't launch her into a career as a much in-demand character actress in this era (she went on to many other films but in most of them appear to have played bits). It's regrettable even here her part is rather small as Franklin is most definitely the life in THE WOMEN IN HIS LIFE.

Kent "Barry" Barringer (Otto Kruger) is a hard cynical lawyer. He gets clients acquitted he knows are guilty using cute "tricks" such as having the defendant's double sit in court being identified by witness after witness only to introduce the real defendant sitting out in the crowd, thus causing reasonable doubt.

Barringer has women betting a night with their bodies over a pinball game. He distrusts even "the women in his life" as cheating chiselers. You see, his wife ran out on him ten years before and something inside him died at the time, so he's spent his time becoming the world's best criminal attorney and "hate bedding" women ever since.

Then one day an innocent appears at his office door - Her father is accused of killing her stepmother. When Barringer sees the dead woman's photo, he realizes that she is the wife who left him ten years ago. He breaks down - as long as there was life there was hope, but now she's dead. She'll never come back. Barringer abandons his practice and his clients and goes on a bender. But what of the girl's father and his trial? Watch and find out.

This is one of my favorite legal precodes. It has everything and its pacing and ability to seamlessly transition from one genre to another is excellent. At first, the film is a courtroom drama, by the end it is a gangster tale. It really has no big stars in it, and Otto Kruger is in rare form in a rare leading role.

Though made by MGM, it really doesn't seem like a film of the era or one that the studio cared very much about, and as a result of MGM's neglect it turned out to be something special. The best way I could describe it is as though MGM and WB had a child. And that child - this film - has the MGM class and WB's sass. I'd highly recommend it.

With Una Merkel as Barringer's unflappable secretary, Ben Lyon as Barringer's straight arrow junior partner, Isabel Jewell as the woman who loves Barringer but might as well be talking to a rock when it comes time to talk of love, and Roscoe Karns as the same kind of wise-cracking assistant he played in 20th Century the following year.