The Case Against Mrs. Ames

When the story begins, Hope Ames (Madeleine Carroll) is on trial for her life. It seems they believe she murdered her husband. However, despite the prosecutor, Matt Logan (George Brent), believing the case is going to be easily won, she's fond not guilty. This, however, is not the end of Hope's problems as her mother-in-law is now suing for custody--and the old woman seems willing to do just about anything to get the child away from its mother.

Things look pretty hopeless for Hope, and her only possible help might come from Matt Logan...as the prosecutor is now working for Hope. But what can Matt find out that would shed a different light on the case?

Like so many courtroom dramas, this one if filled with ridiculous outbursts and salacious newspaper headlines. But the story is still quite interesting despite its excesses....and if you thought the mother and mother-in-law screaming out in court is crazy...just wait until the insane ending to the story!.

Madeleine Carroll hits the American studios in this soap opera mixed with a murder mystery. She is on trial for killing her husband, but charms the all-male jury into finding her not guilty. This so enrages George Brent, the ADA finishing up the case, that he berates them, and claims that the District Attorney deliberately threw the case, then tossed it into his lap to take the heat. He's jailed for contempt, but bailed out by Miss Carroll. Her mother-in-law, Beulah Bondi, has been taking care of her son, Scotty Beckett, and wants Miss Carroll to give him up. Miss Carroll wants Brent to find out who really murdered her husband, and offers him $25,000 if he can prove she did it.

The mystery part of the movie stalls long enough for the case over young Beckett to be ready for judgment before Brent rushes in with the answer to the mystery. The structure makes it clear that the audience is there to watch Miss Carroll suffer, with the mystery an added fillip. From Miss Carroll's viewpoint, it doesn't matter who killed her husband so long as she didn't, and the audience comes to agree.

The script skirts the edge of the Hays Office adroitly, with abortion referred to circumlocutiously, as well as three shady ladies who make a living being kind to gentlemen. But the most adroit part of the movie is the way it offers secondary characters, like Richard Carle's, as part of the background, present, perhaps better defined in Arthur Somers Roche's story, but a sensible part of the background, given just enough to do to make his inclusion good. It's a handsome decision and it pays off in an enjoyable movie. With Arthur Treacher, Alan Mowbray, Esther Dale, Eddie Brophy, Mayo Methot, and June Brewster.

I was left unsure why Arthus Roche's name appeared on the credits. The screenplay bears no resemblance to the novel, and I am driven to the conclusion that using the title of a well known book (and hence having to credit it's author) was thought to be a good way of getting an audience for a second rate low budget movie. Of course, the novel being set in a Broadway of extremely dubious morals wouldn't have gone down too well with the US censor, or with the Hollywood moguls who would would also not have been to keen on the portrayal in the novel of a gangster mixing freely with the Broadway bosses. The issue (seemingly well researched in the novel) of the hardware shop as a front for the supply of weapons to the gangs would have been a bit hard to swallow, but with all those plot changes, why not just write a new screenplay?

I missed the first five minutes of this film when I saw it on tv in the late 1980's. The interaction between Carroll and Brent make it a classic film of the 1930's. I have waited for years for it to come out on VHS, but to no avail. Reluctant love is truly a great theme and one that is well treated in this film with the two great matinee idols of the depression decade.

This is a highly entertaining, at times engrossing, film centering on a beleaguered woman's determination to gain custody of her son in the face of an almost universal feeling of revulsion over her alleged responsibility for the murder of her husband.

English actress Madeleine Carroll delivers a convincing performance in a dramatic role of the kind that she was, unfortunately, given too few opportunities to exploit during her career. As Hope Ames she reveals a compelling sense of emotionalism that was never over-wrought and remained contained, but not blunted, by a cool, elegant exterior. Every thing about her had a sense of elegance and refinement that is so characteristic of the exquisitely beautiful English actress, from her angelic countenance to her flawless diction. Even in the highly fraught scenes where she tries to regain the love and trust of her estranged son never descend into rank sentimentality, but elicit a welling poignancy at the heart-felt expression of affection that only a mother could feel for her child.

George Brent plays Matt Logan, a hard-drinking assistant D.A. whose vulgarities and flamboyant excesses provide an effective counterpoise to the cool Mrs. Ames. It seems that Logan represented a sort of tribune of the people in his effort to prove Mrs. Ames guilt in the murder of her husband, his ultimate success having political implications. This secondary theme of class conflict was a favorite among depression era film makers, and the contemporary audience of this production must have got quite a chuckle when Mrs. Ames' snobbish uncle goes so far as to call Logan a communist.

The remainder of the cast is uniformly excellent. Arthur Treacher as Mrs. Ames' butler, Griggsby, adds a little levity with his humorous excesses even though you know that no one could be that big of a ham. On the other hand, Mrs. Ames' son, Bobbie, played by Scottie Becket, couldn't have been more convincing as the snarling, spoiled brat that only his mother could possibly love. Now on second thoughts, maybe that should have been the real case against Mrs. Ames.