O Segredo de Lady Helen

Great dialogue, the beautiful and sexy Loretta, Henry Daniell at his sleazy best, Roland Young with his gay-friend-who-flirts-with-the-wife quips, a plot that keeps you guessing: like many an entertaining film, the parts are more than the sum. So much fun that its unbelievable ending just seems out of place. Its source is one of those clever stage mysteries made for the Middle Class. Most of Sam Wood's movies are pretty good; it's not that far from the Marx Brothers to this.

Unguarded Hour, The (1936)

*** (out of 4)

A future D.A. (Franchot Tone) is being blackmailed over letters written to a former mistress so his wife (Loretta Young) goes to pay off the blackmailer (Henry Daniell). There's more to the story including the mistress being murdered as well as another murder case that took place where Young went to drop off the money but I won't go into much detail about those issues because how they come up is half the fun of the film. I really wasn't expecting much from this film but it turned out to be a very intelligent little thriller that has some great acting by the leads and supporting cast. Loretta Young is great as usual as the wife who must decide to save an innocent man's life or ruin the career of her husband. There's one scene in the film where Tone, Lewis Stone and Roland Young are putting on a fake trial and talking about how what seems to be hiding up guilt might just be the person telling the truth. This is a terrific little scene and all three actors really sell it perfectly. There's a lot of dialogue in this movie but director Wood keeps everything moving along at a fast pace. The title refers to an hour in every person's life where they can't prove where they were and there's no one there to back up where they might have been so if they were charged with a crime there's no way they could get out of it.

This 1936 film is a great film Classic with outstanding veteran actors who made this into a great dramatic story concerning Lady Helen Dudley Dearden, (Loretta Young) who tries to protect her husband from a past relationship with a young woman. Sir Alan Dearden (Franchot Tone) is an outstanding lawyer who is about to be chosen as Attorney General and his wife Lady Helen is being blackmailed by Hugh Lewis (Henry Daniell) with a bunch of love letters that Sir Alan had sent to this woman. The story gets quite involved with a man being accused of killing his wife and also another murder of a woman Sir Alan had an affair with. There is a very tricky ending to this film that you will not be able to figure out until the very ending of this film. Roland Young, (William "Bunny" Jeffers ) gave a great supporting role to this great film classic.

The ever graceful and dynamic Loretta Young had a deservedly long movie career from the silent era until the early 1950's. She then turned to television with the popular "Letter to Loretta," where she is well remembered for her entrance sashaying through a door wearing a swirling skirt. "The Unguarded Hour" is from her early talky days in Hollywood before going on to win an Oscar for her fantastic performance in "The Farmer's Daughter."

Loretta plays one of her usual roles as Lady Helen Dudley Dearden a dutiful wife who stands by her husband, the debonair Franchot Tone as Sir Alan Dearden who is on his way to the top of the legal profession in England about to be appointed the youngest attorney general ever. Then appears a blackmailer Hugh Lewis played with his usual aura of chicanery by Henry Daniell. Lady Dearden must pay for some indiscreet old love letters written by Sir Alan to a lover before he met m'lady or the letters will be made public possibly destroying him professionally. Lady Dearden unwittingly finds herself a mystery woman in one of her husband's murder cases. The plot thickens until Sir Alan himself becomes a suspect in the same case. All must be unraveled with a few surprises along the way before the somewhat hasty ending to a well made film.

As with most movies based on plays, there is too much verbiage from time to time but director Sam Wood is able to make things move faster than many similar type vintage mysteries from the same period.

Loretta Young, Franchot Tone, Lewis Stone, Roland Young, and Henry Daniell are all involved in "The Unguarded Hour," a 1936 film directed by Sam Wood.

Young plays Lady Dearden, a newlywed whose husband's (Tone) promising career as a prosecutor is threatened by letters he wrote to another woman before he was married. The blackmailer (Daniell) gives Lady Dearden some complicated instructions by which to deliver the money to him. She follows his instructions but in doing so, she becomes the only witness in a case her husband is trying. Though a man's life is at stake, she doesn't want her husband to know of the incident.

Pretty good if talky film, with the 23-year-old Young stealing every scene in which she appears with her glorious looks and gentle quality. There are still beautiful actresses, but Young truly had a special look and a gentility we probably won't see again. Franchot does a good job as her handsome husband, and Roland Young is delightful as a family friend. Henry Daniell, who played slimeballs so well, plays a slimeball here.

Enjoyable.