L'assassino è in casa!

Ever get stuck watching a movie and you couldn't wait until it ended? This was one of the few that I've seen. Excruciating is a good word. Only a great cast saves it from a lower rating - makes you wonder what they could have done with better material.

"Slightly Honorable" can't decide if it's a comedy or a mystery picture and fails on both levels - not funny and not very mysterious. Ruth Terry is 'cute and perky' but is an annoying presence. Eve Arden is wasted, as is Edward Arnold. Pat O'Brien does his best but it's not enough. The disjointed storyline is not believable and not worth recounting.

If this picture is shown on a rainy day and you have nothing to do, find a good book.

Quite amazing for a B movie!!! Travis Banton was Paramount's top clothes designer in the early thirties. He designed dresses for Marlene Dietrich, Claudette Colbert, Kay Francis and Carole Lombard among others.

John Webb, an attorney, (Pat O'Brien) is invited to a party by Alma (Claire Dodd), an old girlfriend, who is now the mistress of Cushing (Edward Arnold). He meets an annoying singer Ann (Ruth Terry), who he later rescues from the paws of a drunken guest. When Webb finds Alma murdered, he determined to "square" it but can't shake the irritating Ann. Helped by his sassy secretary (Eve Arden) and dopey associate (Broderick Crawford), he is stymied by District Attorney Joyce (oily Alan Dinehart) who is in pretty thick with Cushing. Suspects pile up - Alma's ex husband George (Douglas Dumbrille), even Ann puts her foot in it by implicating Webb!!! As one of the reviewers implied, Ann and Webb would have to be the odd couple of the century. In real life he would never find happiness with an air head like her!!! When Webb's secretary is found dead (Eve Arden didn't get much of a chance to strut her stuff), suspicion puts Webb on the top of the list. Evelyn Keyes has a bit as the new secretary and Phyllis Brookes also has a small part as Cushing's beautiful daughter. Things come to a head in a little Texas cemetery.

The film is excellent because of the superior quality of everyone associated with it. The cast was top notch - aside from Pat O'Brien you have Edward Arnold, Broderick Crawford, Douglas Dumbrille and Alan Dinehart, one of the most suave villains of the 30s. Then on the female side you have the beautiful Claire Dodd, Phyllis Brooks, sassy Eve Arden and the lovely Evelyn Keyes (who would have been excellent as Ann, not nearly so annoying as Ruth Terry). Tay Garnett was a real "man's" director who was at home with action adventures ie "China Seas" (1935) and "Trade Winds" (1938).

Claire Dodd, is definitely my favourite bad girl. When she appeared in a film, good girls like Joan Blondell, Ann Dvorak and Helen Twelvetrees had some pretty anxious moments - she even played Della Street in a couple of early Perry Masons. Whoever she played she always looked a dream. Phyllis Brooks had been a McClelland Barclay model and although she was decorative her acting skills were almost non existent. Evelyn Keyes was more noted for her wit and racy memoirs but she was extremely vivacious and it was always nice to see her in movies.

Recommended.

Frank Presnell's first of three crime novels, "Send Another Coffin", is the basis for this film, completed the year following publication of the original, featuring flinty Ohio attorney John Webb (Pat O'Brien) with his wife Ann (Ruth Terry), the duo patterned somewhat upon Dashiell Hammett's Nick and Nora Charles, although Webb is less suave than Nick and more eager to stir political pots. A corrupt state politician, Vincent Cushing (Edward Arnold), is the principal target for Webb's reforming urge, and when Cushing's mistress Alma (Claire Dodd), erstwhile flame of Webb, is murdered, nearly all of the major characters seem to have a motive, including Webb, who faces most of the heat from the homicide investigation although he perceives himself to be "slightly honorable" when compared with those about him. The work includes a strong comedic element along with its murder mystery and socially conscious themes. Vivacious Terry, with her patented energy and spirit, steals the film in what she states is her favourite role, a part for which she is promised by producer Walter Wanger and director Tay Garnett that the former night club singer/dancer will be spotlighted in a musical specialty number, and that she is, one that is perfectly woven into the screenplay, this while under personal contract to Howard Hughes who loans her to Wanger for this production. A cardinal pleasure inherent with film reviewing is discovery of works that have not received an amount of recognition that they deserve, and that is the case in this instance, for it is a piece that includes among its attributes sparkling dialogue, skillful acting and, especially, that mastery of narrative pace and rhythm that marks the best efforts from Garnett who here cunningly blends details for his established mise-en-scène within the script, as is his custom. Even without his foremost mannequin, Marlene Dietrich, Travis Banton's gowns are noteworthy and there is a strikingly illustrative score from Werner Janssen.

Pat O'Brien and Broderick Crawford are a couple of attorneys and political enemies of Boss Edward Arnold who's grown rich on all kinds of graft. They're starting to have people listen to them until a couple of murders get pinned on O'Brien. They're on the defensive after that until those murders are solved.

Tay Garnett manages to strike the right blend of humor and drama to Slightly Honorable. O'Brien, Crawford, and Arnold do well in very familiar roles to them.

One thing that truly was annoying was juvenile Ruth Terry. She's fresh out of bobby sox and O'Brien's a man of the world. Now if she was something slinky and sexy like Lauren Bacall was with Humphrey Bogart or even sophisticated like Myrna Loy with William Powell, the attractiveness would make some sense. But she's frankly just one royal pain. I can't figure out why O'Brien would possibly be interested in her.

Still it's an interesting plot that the audience will find intriguing.

Fast talking lawyer Pat O'Brien sets out to do a job—on the level, but only for the money, it seems. The "job" is fighting the highway monopoly controlled by smooth talking crime boss Edward Arnold. Broderick Crawford is O'Brien's law partner and pal; they set out to take down Arnold and his empire.

Sounds like a solid drama, but…soon silly girl singer Ruth Terry is telling O'Brien "I like you" at a party. He half-heartedly discourages her enthusiastic advances on him, and he doesn't quite believe that she's eighteen years and two months old, as she says; however, she persists in chasing him around for the rest of the movie, wearing down his resistance and distracting him from the real plot—

A woman is murdered and the few clues point toward O'Brien. Who really did the murder, and why is O'Brien being framed? –There's the mystery O'Brien has to sort out, with assistance (and frequent interference) from partner Crawford, from the kid singer Terry, and from the cops—who may be Arnold's stooges.

Bizarre humorous touches distract somewhat from the mystery plot; for example, the scene in which all of the suspects remove their shoes to be examined for blood stains, and Edward Arnold has an embarrassing hole in the toe of his sock. Terry and O'Brien giggle madly…even though the corpse is still lying in the next room. It just doesn't quite fit.

I would have liked to see more of three other women characters: Claire Dodd as an early victim (intimate friends with more than one suspect), Eve Arden as O'Brien's secretary (smart and ready), and Phyllis Brooks as Arnold's daughter (conscience crying out as she learns about her father). All are very good in too small roles.

We do get plenty of Ruth Terry…who is actually very good herself, except that hers and O'Brien's relationship never really convinces, the chemistry never really gels. Unfortunately for her, she comes across as rather annoying.

One truly chilling moment involves a discovery at a desk—a shock that is totally unexpected and perfectly executed.

Otherwise, the plot is passable, the cast a bunch of pros, the dialog zippy—and the romance and humor a little oddball. Fun—just a little unsteady.