For an archivist researching a documentary of early thirties America, 'The Woman Accused' abounds in rich pickings; commencing with the opening film snapshots depicting the ten popular authors who contributed the preposterous plot in the form of a round robin; and including ample footage of the dawn of the Roosevelt administration, still feeling the bruises of the Wall Street Crash, but celebrating the repeal of prohibition. Little nuggets of contemporary information we learn include the fact that in 1933 the engaged tone was known as "the busy signal", and that in those days a murder trial with all the trimmings cost $100,000.
Baby-faced Nancy Carroll is the show here, modelling a variety of figure-hugging backless gowns (and a bathing suit), with a young Cary Grant serving as the arm candy while she is pursued during a pleasure cruise by creepy John Halliday, who devises an absurdly elaborate scheme to see her arrested for killing her loathsome old flame Louis Calhern - who for some unfathomable reason Halliday genuinely seemed to care about. Halliday happily enlists the aid of a hired thug played by an even more loathsome Jack La Rue despite presumably being aware that La Rue has previously killed people on Calhern's behalf. How Grant persuades La Rue to change his testimony has to be seen to believed, like something out of a pre-WWI rather than a Pre-Code movie (I'd love to know which of the authors came up with that gem)!
As Carroll's devoted maid Martha - literally prepared to shed her own blood on her behalf - the scary Norma Mitchell (who also wrote Broadway farces) makes a striking film debut, but made only two more minor film appearances.
