The Woman Accused

Glenda, (Nancy Carroll) a socialite, is about to marry her true love, lawyer Jeffrey (Cary Grant) but her past catches up with her.

This is a very watchable film with good performances, especially Carroll as the woman who is blackmailed by a sleazy former lover (Louis Calhern). She is later accused of murder by the victims friend (John Halliday). Grant's role at first seemed like just a colorless boyfriend role but he has a striking scene at the end which involves a whip and a gangster who seems like a tough guy at first. This makes the movie and has to be seen to be believed. Grant gives a fine performance and it's easy to see why he became such a big star. He had appeared with Carroll before in another good film "Hot Saturday" and has nice chemistry with her. It is too bad she retired at her peak in the late 1930s, she later came back in the 1950s to do TV work. The mock trial on a cruise ship is another highlight.

I really like Cary Grant, but this film came off weak. This is probably Cary Grant's worst performance, although it isn't that bad. Overall, the film comes off more like a series of anti-climaxes and half-assed plot devices. I will give the film credit for it's ambition. The film is actually quite fun to watch, but it feels lifeless and weak and it just sort of falls apart before anything really interesting happens. The love story plot on the boat doesn't really make much sense and gives the film a more experimental film than I would like. I guess it comes off as more a series of events that don't really add to too much. I did like the opening scenes involving the phone call that Nancy Carrol gets. I thought her performance was actually better than Cary Grant's as a matter of fact. However, she does some pretty thoughtless and unrealistic stuff that really didn't help the believability factor one bit. Overall, there are some things I like about this film, but there's ore that I don't like and I cannot quite recommend the movie unless you are a die-hard fan of Cary Grant.

They didn't learn did they? The previous year Paramount made the utterly disjointed IF I HAD A MILLION with different directors making separate segments. This time it was different writers writing this film's nine different scenes...without seeing what the others had done! The result is like one of those improv shows where the audience shouts out what should happen next.

This crazy way of creating a script fortunately was at least weaved together by one single scriptwriter but each scene is so different in style it feels like we're watching different people with different personalities every ten minutes. Miraculously overseeing wordsmith Bayard Veiller and director Paul Sloane almost make it work....but not quite. There's one segment for example where Nancy Carroll is being taunted by her internal dialogue - we're hearing her thoughts. Quite interesting but you think you might have accidentally switched channels.

I'd love to know who wrote each part but it doesn't seem to be recorded anywhere. I think the reason for this is so that nobody would know who wrote that last chapter because nobody would want to claim responsibility for that. The first eight chapters kind of work together but that last scene is simply atrocious. Whoever wrote that should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves - they wouldn't want that publicised or they'd never work again. Unless you want to see how bad a mediocre film can get, switch this off after the mock courtroom scene, i promise you it will make more sense.

So, what's this about (as some of the writers clearly wondered)? Nancy Carroll kills a bad man and runs off with Cary Grant to escape the law. Depending on who's writing which bit, she's a strong/weak/ determined/sensitive/ neurotic young woman and he's a dashing sophisticated/naive/cynical/morally upstanding/morally corrupt lawyer. These two are actually both marvellous in almost making their impossible roles like real characters. Seriously, they really are good actors. They do actually make this pretty watchable.....apart from that last scene.

It's interesting to see this takes place on what was euphemistically called "a pleasure cruise." These were popular in the twenties and early thirties when you realise what they were. This was made at the end of 1932 before Prohibition was repealed so the scene when the stewards are knocking on everyone's door saying "The bar is open" was really significant: it meant that the ship had sailed into international waters so the three day bender was about to begin! Although this cruise ship seems very refined and genteel, that's more Paramount than reality. These hugely popular three-day pleasure cruises were more commonly known as Booze Cruses and were essentially floating speakeasies.

Presumably it was on such a cruse that the last scene was written.

The Woman Accused (1933)

*** (out of 4)

Glenda O'Brien (Nancy Carroll) is about to happily marry Jeffrey Baxter (Cary Grant) but before doing so an old flame calls her. At first she doesn't want to even go to his room but she's forced there and before long the man is threatening to have Jeffrey murdered. To prevent that from happening Glenda hits him over the head and it kills him. Glenda and Jeffrey go on a cruise to get away from it but it haunts her and matters aren't helped when Stephen Bessemer (John Halliday) begins asking questions.

THE WOMAN ACCUSED is a rather interesting little drama that works in large part to the three lead performances. Fans of this era's motion pictures will certainly want to check this one out thanks to the trio of acting talents but it's also very much worth watching for a number of other reasons.

For the most part it has a rather interesting story and also a rather interesting way of getting played out. On the cruise ship Glenda is pretty much stalked and harassed by Stephen who does several (probably) illegal things to try and get a confession out of her. This leads to a very bizarre mock trial where the woman eventually cracks. The film also contains some very memorable moments towards the end of the picture including a certain beat down that I won't spoil but man, it has to be seen to be believed!

As I said, the acting is the real stand out here with Carroll doing a nice job in her leading role. She basically has to play a frightened woman throughout the picture but I thought she was very believable in regards to the fear she shows. I also thought her scene with the former lover was very well played. Grant also gets a chance to act here. Most of his parts up to this one were just him looking pretty but this one here allowed him to show some dramatic range. Halliday is also extremely good as the menacing man who wants that confession.

There are certainly some flaws throughout the picture and there's no question that it's not a masterpiece but fans of this era should enjoy it.

A scrappy she-didn't-mean-to-do-it in which the principals are forced to do their best to act out a somewhat foregone drama—admittedly with a few clever twists here and there. By and large, Carroll, Grant and Halliday manage rather well, and it's certainly not their fault that they tend to out-stay their welcome, allowing the histrionic thunder to be stolen by the support team headed by Jack LaRue (a small part, but you'll never forget him in this one), Louis Calhern (a really nasty piece of work), Norma Mitchell (a stage actress who made only three films, of which this is the first), the effervescent Lona André ("round and round") and Irving Pichel, the smooth-talking D.A. who knows which side of a legal argument will win him the most votes.

Production credits are great, with a special nod for Sloane's silky direction and Struss' marvelously fluid, super-attractive camera-work.