The Right of Way

"The Right of Way" is the story of a glib lawyer (Conrad Nagel) who is also a mess outside the court. His brother-in-law is a thief and Nagel's character is beaten half to death. He has amnesia and ends up being cared for by some decent folks. And, as he recovers his memory, the lawyer realizes how bad his life was before his beating.

I had a very hard time watching "The Right of Way" because the film was just terrible...mostly due to very antiquated dialog and horrible overacting. It also features the worst French-Canadian accent I have ever heard--making accents in "Dudley Dooright" seem brilliant by comparison! How anyone gave this film anything better than a 3 or 4 is shocking! Heck, how you could give it anything more than a 2 is ALSO shocking! Among the worst dialog and acting I can recall...much worse than Ed Wood's "Plan 9 From Outer Space"!

I like a lot of the early '30s "pre-code" films but this was just drivel with poor dialog and some poor acting. I only watched it to see Loretta Young, who was a real beauty in her younger days.

The dialog and some of things in here are so dated, so sappy and so overly-melodramatic with the lead character, played by Conrad Nagel, that it's almost laughable. What lawyer interrupts his closing speech to pick up a hankie from a woman in the audience, and then whisper something, kiss her hand and leave the courtroom? The guys nickname is "Beauty," and he sure is that! I wonder if audiences in the early '30s actually took this character and dialog seriously....or were they enamored to have "talkies."

Well, at least Loretta looked super, and sounded like a normal person but how many could people today watch this and stick around long enough to see her? She doesn't appear until almost a half hour, which is almost half the movie!

Conrad Nagel is a trial lawyer who, no sooner does he get his client off, calls him guilty. His Pecksniffian wife has been using him as a checkbook to pay her brother's gambling debts. When that very brother steal a large sum of money for an undisclosed purpose, Nagel pursues him and demands it back. For his trouble, he is threatened by some low-lifes. He calls them cowards, so they beat him to death.... almost. Fortunately, there's Loretta Young to nurse the amnesiac Nagel.

What disagreeable people all these Canadians are! Nagel offers some of his worst acting in this very slightly expanded stage play that sat on the shelf for at least six months, because Warner Brothers didn't think it worthwhile to release this piece of cheese that Frank Lloyd turned out for them. Even Snitz Edwards, in his antepenultimate screen appearance, offers nothing to please the audience.

I fell asleep whilst watching this utter load of bilge and so went and watched most of it again.Where does one start.The court scenes are laughable.After all how could a barrister walk out of court whilst a Judge sums up.If he misdirects then how is the barrister to know.However the most ridiculous moment comes when Nagel is told his true name having lost his memory,and because of this suddenly regains his memory.It all comes back to him in an instant!Other than Loretta Young it is clear that the actors do not have a clue how to act for the talkies.We have gestures and looks and abysmal attempts at accents.This is a film to avoid unless you want a cure for insomnia

Not to be disrespectful of the early days of talkies, but if you see this one listed on TCM, skip it. It absolutely creaks with age. Set in Quebec, "The Right of Way" is a melodrama about a rather mean attorney nicknamed "Beauty" (don't ask me why) who gets involved in a bar fight when he goes to see his thieving brother-in-law in a bad part of town. As a result of the beating he takes, he develops amnesia and is brought to a rural area by a man he defended. When he regains consciousness, he remembers nothing, and takes the name Charles Mallard. He falls in love with the lovely daughter of the postmaster, played by Loretta Young. Young, radiant and beautiful, was about 18 when she did this film.

Except for a naturalistic Young, the acting is outrageously bad, intensely melodramatic, with many lines said with tremulous voices. As is often the case in the early days of sound, the actors weren't used to the medium yet so their timing is off. And the French Canadian accents - horrific. I can't agree with one of the posters about Conrad Nagel - yes, he was over the top, but so was his atrocious dialogue. He at least didn't drag the pace.

Not good.