The Women in His Life

Not a great movie by any means. However, you will see Otto Kruger like you've never seem him before. His performance is outstanding, ond I had never been a fan of his ever, until now. See it just for him.

Kent Barringer (Otto Kruger) is a self-assured cynical womanizing successful defense lawyer. He gets another guilty man off. He uses every trick to win his cases. He keeps a picture of an old flame to remind him that love is an illusion. He gets a case defending a supposed innocent murderer. He is shocked to find the victim to be his pictured ex.

This is a pre-Code drama. I really like the premise and the start. I would like a more dashing and younger lead. Otherwise, Otto Kruger is pretty good. I don't buy the doppelganger defense. Everybody has a doppelganger. Kent didn't actually prove anything. As for the big case, I thought he would do more investigating after the loss. The second half is not as compelling.

Otto Kruger stars as a gifted criminal defense lawyer, Kent Barringer, in this well directed and fast paced crime drama. Barringer is a troubled, cynical man, who's wife left him ten years before for another man. He must now face his past when he is shocked to discover that his ex-wife was the victim of the man that he's defending for murder. This is a well plotted little budget film with an excellent cast, with MGM's usual first-rate production values. Staring along with Kruger, are old pro's like Una Merkel, Roscoe Karns and surprisingly Isabel Jewell, usually typecast as a gum chewing bimbo -- here getting to play a good girl with brains.

One of the shining examples of the mastery of screenwriting from the Golden Age of Hollywood, by F. Hugh Herbert (not to be confused with comic actor Hugh Herbert from the same era). Viennese-born Herbert (Sitting Pretty, The Moon is Blue, etc.) was also the President of the Screen Writer's Guild.

In this film we experience the commanding embrace of a well-conceived story brought to resplendent life by the notable actor Otto Kruger and a fine cast. Kruger, a major Broadway star of the 1920s later became a reliable and extraordinary screen character actor.

Today gems like this can be encountered only fleetingly on Turner Classic Movies. Worthy of study, they are not to be found on Home Video, another oversight of movie moguls who often sit on top of forgotten gold mines while churning out garbage that sustains illiteracy and decimates popular values. This is just one of hundreds for which we owe Ted Turner a debt of gratitude.

This movie would have been mediocre at best had it not been for Otto Kruger's performance. His acting in this movie is so natural, so unlike most precode acting where the acting is over dramatic. I honestly kept wTching just for him, he totally drew me in.