Lady in the Death House

Opening scene: Jean Parker walks into the death chamber to be electrocuted…and the action cuts to Lionel Atwill and a roomful of reporters apparently congratulating him on cracking the case. He tells them the tale of how he met Parker, how she came to be convicted of killing a blackmailer by whacking him over the head, and how Atwill himself grew convinced of her innocence and set about investigating.

Atwill is quite smooth as Charles Finch, a well knows criminologist who says, "I keep insisting I'm a psychologist." Lionel Atwill didn't get to play the good guy every day, and he does well as the insightful and wise but also quick-thinking detective capable of decisive action.

Jean Parker is sympathetic as the earnest young woman who has a family secret from which it's hard to hide. The role doesn't offer a lot of opportunities for showing her character's fun side, but Parker does a capable job of playing it smart and attractive….She is also the responsible one in a family that includes a wild younger sister (Marcia Mae Jones) who is obviously concealing information vital to solving the mystery.

Douglas Fowley is the other lead, a young doctor ("I prefer to think of myself as a scientist") who has some bold ideas (he is developing a method to revive dead things) but is obliged to raise research money doing a job he hates down at the prison—he throws the switch when a convict is put in the electric chair. He's a rather gloomy fellow; I'm not sure what Parker is supposed to see in him, but of course they fall in love…which causes Fowley an unusual conflict between personal and professional obligations when Parker is sentenced to the chair.

It all builds somewhat predictably but manages to entertain despite the lack of surprises.

Fun to see Atwill in a central good guy role….In the early scene where Fowley tells him his mad-scientist-type idea, I was half expecting Atwill to say something like, "Yes, I've tried that in one or two of my other films"…. Alas, he played it straight.

This tautly constructed little movie should serve as a model for those modern film authors who cannot unfold the simplest story line in less than two hours.

The movie opens with Mary Kirk being led from her cell to walk to the death chamber. She leaves a letter for Charles Finch, a psychologist and criminologist. In it she has outlined the events which led to her situation. We then see Finch reading the letter to a small group of reporters, supplementing it with an account of his own involvement in the affair. His first person narrative alternates with flashback depiction of the events. Half way into the movie he has reached the point at which Mary was convicted and sentenced to death. The next 20 minutes cover his subsequent efforts to find the evidence which will clear her. He still has not succeeded by the time we have caught up to the opening of the movie and see Mary finish her walk to the electric chair. The remaining few minutes are a desperate race against the clock played more or less in real time.

The movie does not waste an inch of film. Every scene conveys information and advances the action, with smooth and skillful links. Particularly effective is the way in which the character of Mary's younger sister, Suzy, is handled. Her appearances are almost always incidental to the main action, but as the movie progresses it becomes clear that she is somehow central to the solution.

The nature of the plot means that the title character plays a passive rather than an active role. Jean Parker is persuasive in the part, wisely forgoing the opportunities for melodramatics. Marcia Mae Jones' porcelain-doll prettiness frequently led to her being cast as a vain and foolish little madam, and her role here as Suzy suits her talents. Lionel Atwill makes a convincing sleuth, neatly conveying a blend of scientific detachment, humanitarian concern, and an occasional twinkle of humour.

Anybody who thinks that "first class B movie" is an oxymoron should study this film and learn better.

Mary (Jean Parker) is due to die on the electric chair. She makes the walk towards her fate but there is still hope for a reprieve. The story is told by Charles Finch (Lionel Atwill) in flashback. Will Mary be saved for a crime that she didn't commit...?...

While Atwill is quite good, the acting is all rather forgettable. As is the story. I only watched it yesterday and there are already some gaps in my memory. The cast are uninspiring to watch with Marcia Mae Jones's character as Suzi, Parker's sister, being the standout performance. Not because she is any good, but because she is mad. The fadeout techniques between scenes are interesting to begin with but endless repetition cheapens the device. The film also seems rushed. It's not a particularly bad film but it's nothing great.

The flick's a PRC programmer that manages some suspense. So, will an eager Fowley and Atwill get to the warden before an innocent Parker is executed. It's certainly one of the lengthiest suspenseful countdowns on white-knuckle record. The story's told in flashback as Parker walks the last mile, so things look bad for her from the outset. Then too, it's two of moviedom's traditional bad guys Fowley and Atwill playing good guys, so seeing them as heroes takes some getting used to. Though the exposition gets a little difficult at times, there's a standout nightclub scene where Parker's dress catches afire with a romantic aftermath that solidifies a relationship. The acting is good, except for the wild-eyed Jones whose expressions at times are almost clownish. All in all, it's a decent little programmer that, with a few changes, might have fit into the old Perry Mason TV series.

An interesting whodunit that suffers mainly from flaws in motivational logic for the characters, as well as unbelievable legal procedures, but that is part of the sense of disbelief that has to be suspended for many B-movie crime dramas of the era.

Lionel Atwill is the state executioner, who needs his job to finance his research which is ironically, brining the dead back to life. He gives a brief explanation of his process theory, though it isn't important to the story. He feels he has to keep his job though because of the importance of it to his work, particularly financing it, despite the fact that his fiancée finds the job abhorrent and refuses to marry him when she finds out what he does.

In the opening scene you have seen her walking to the death chamber, with the story told in flashbacks by the detective played by Cy Kendall. Lionel Atwill's character you figure out early is in the unenviable position of being required to pull the switch on his girlfriend. As time is running out, Kendall tries to gather evidence to clear her.

Since it is told in flashbacks, some things that are to happen you learn early on, but the film telegraphs too much that it doesn't intend you to know, at least not for sure. There is never even the slightest doubt about who is innocent or hiding something, and the movie would have benefited from a little more ambiguity in the beginning, which could have been easily accomplished. With a little work on the script, this could have been a much better movie.

All in all not bad, and with a runtime of 56 minutes doesn't have time for you to grow weary waiting for the solution.

One aspect that seems amusingly dated today though is the crime Mary's father was convicted of when she was a child: Pinball racketeering. Largely forgotten now, but there was a time when pinball machines were a dreaded, evil scourge that many cities tried to stamp out with bans. Her father was railroaded by an aggressive district attorney, and for the purposes of the movie, it provided a "criminal" father who actually wasn't too bad, and was perhaps unfairly persecuted.