Cross-Examination

William V. Mong has called in his lawyer to witness his new will in which he has cut off his son with a dollar. His son, Don Dillaway, comes in and they have a private conference. When next seen, his father is dead.

The movie takes place in court, with Wilfred Lucas presiding, Edmund Breese as the prosecuting attorney, H.B. Warner as the defense attorney, and Dillaway as the defendant. As each defendant testifies, the events of the evening are shown in flashback. It's a nicely structured example of the courtroom detective story, but it has the same essential flaw that every example holds for me: an utter failure of the investigative process that has led to the trial. The script ameliorates this by offering some strong motivations for people to hide their actions, but it niggles me nonetheless.

Still and all, it was a pleasure to watch the old professionals at work under the direction of Richard Thorpe, a sure hand at getting good results on screen with not much in the way in budgets. Within a couple of years he would go to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer where he would gradually work his way up through programmers into the big time, still coming in on budget for good results. In an era when hundreds of millions of dollars are tossed around by directors who have had one or two independent successes -- the modern-day equivalent of the Poverty-Row studios where Thorpe had toiled for nine years when he directed this movie -- it's a virtue worth noting.