This movie's title pays tribute to the deity of Justice, when it should have spent some time at the altar of Credibility.
The underrated character actor Ernest Torrence plays 'Big' Bill Devens, a railway navvy whose wife Eileen leaves him to marry a more promising man named Clayton ... abandoning her infant daughter Moira in the process. Fade in years later, and former labourer Big Bill is now the president of the railway, having risen to that position through graft. His daughter Moira has grown up to become the exquisitely beautiful blonde Esther Ralston. Meanwhile, Eileen Clayton has fallen on hard times. Aware of her former husband's success, she goes to see him in the hope of a hand-out. There's a painful scene in which mother Eileen and daughter Moira cross paths in the waiting room but don't recognise each other. Moira is here to see Hugh Dillon, her father's handsome lawyer.
SPOILERS COMING. Then comes a killing by Kelling. Big Bill's associate Henry Kelling shoots him dead, and Eileen Clayton is arrested for the deed. So far, Dillon has been a civil lawyer, but now he jumps the bar and becomes a criminal-defence advocate so that he can represent Eileen Clayton. Dillon is the only one who knows that Mrs Clayton is Moira's mum. For love of Moira, he decides to save her mother from the electric chair. Since Eileen Clayton clearly had no qualms about abandoning her own daughter, why should Dillon attach any significance to the maternal bond?
This movie is full of characters I don't give a damn about. Esther Ralston is extremely beautiful in this film, but her role has the least to do (and is the least well-written) of the main characters in this story. The actor Charles Lane who plays the judge during the trial sequence is not the famous sourpuss character actor of that name. I'll rate 'The Blind Goddess' 3 out of 10.
