This pre-code crime drama is an early collaboration between director John Cromwell and actor William Powell, who plays attorney William Foster, a gifted but relatively unbiased defense man known for his often successful grandstanding. Foster becomes involved in a homicide case that threatens his love interest, actress Irene Manners (Kay Francis). She had fooled him for a while beforehand and Foster is now supposed to defend her side banter (Scott Kolk) in court despite the fact that it was actually Manners who caused the fatal accident at issue here.
It's about love, finding your own compass, which in Foster's case consists of love for a woman, and a work ethic. Everything is touched on quite superficially, but then at least in a calm and less lurid presentation, while some important things are not considered at all, such as the bad conscience, or rather the lack of it, after a man has been killed. The latter carries more weight and takes away some of the film's impact. Because otherwise this early court drama is definitely worth seeing and shot well. "For the Defense" even anticipates some of the subject matter and atmosphere of later court films and can therefore be considered genre-descriptive in many ways, even if this film didn't become a classic. Interesting questions are raised, but not elaborated enough. For example, the relationship between private love and a professional career, which has already been touched upon, and the relationship between professional understanding of a career and professional ethos derived from this. Here, a lawyer acts out of love, after all, being a private person before his professional stature, as Foster takes pain, jealousy and disappointment with him in his decision-making and ultimately in the courtroom. In the end, that private Foster wins, while the viewer is made aware that this is only possible through the public prosecutor's resentment of their adversary, which is a mixture of the private and the professional. The neither optimistic nor pessimistic ending leaves a lot open, but at least makes one thing clear. Namely that for the lawyer Foster, who is now going to prison for bribing the jury, consciously devoted himself to his private side, to love. Love is here described as a more determining good than the good of vocation. Manners tells Foster that she is waiting for him, Foster replies that he can believe the truth at the end of his incarceration. This can be understood as an allegory of the jury in the courtroom, which must also rely on the words of the organized constitutional state in order to finally make a decision on how to proceed. A lot depends on facts, but a lot also depends on the impressiveness of the presentation. What is decisive, however, is the final act, the plea.
It's a pity that the film doesn't elaborate on the themes in more detail, but concentrates primarily on Foster's emotional transformation. While well acted, it's not the most interesting aspect of this story. It remains a good film, with very interesting camera work for the time by the old master Charles Lang, an interesting court drama, with a good main actor, but with weaknesses in individual aspects of the narrative structure and a poor focus in the overall project.
It's about love, finding your own compass, which in Foster's case consists of love for a woman, and a work ethic. Everything is touched on quite superficially, but then at least in a calm and less lurid presentation, while some important things are not considered at all, such as the bad conscience, or rather the lack of it, after a man has been killed. The latter carries more weight and takes away some of the film's impact. Because otherwise this early court drama is definitely worth seeing and shot well. "For the Defense" even anticipates some of the subject matter and atmosphere of later court films and can therefore be considered genre-descriptive in many ways, even if this film didn't become a classic. Interesting questions are raised, but not elaborated enough. For example, the relationship between private love and a professional career, which has already been touched upon, and the relationship between professional understanding of a career and professional ethos derived from this. Here, a lawyer acts out of love, after all, being a private person before his professional stature, as Foster takes pain, jealousy and disappointment with him in his decision-making and ultimately in the courtroom. In the end, that private Foster wins, while the viewer is made aware that this is only possible through the public prosecutor's resentment of their adversary, which is a mixture of the private and the professional. The neither optimistic nor pessimistic ending leaves a lot open, but at least makes one thing clear. Namely that for the lawyer Foster, who is now going to prison for bribing the jury, consciously devoted himself to his private side, to love. Love is here described as a more determining good than the good of vocation. Manners tells Foster that she is waiting for him, Foster replies that he can believe the truth at the end of his incarceration. This can be understood as an allegory of the jury in the courtroom, which must also rely on the words of the organized constitutional state in order to finally make a decision on how to proceed. A lot depends on facts, but a lot also depends on the impressiveness of the presentation. What is decisive, however, is the final act, the plea.
It's a pity that the film doesn't elaborate on the themes in more detail, but concentrates primarily on Foster's emotional transformation. While well acted, it's not the most interesting aspect of this story. It remains a good film, with very interesting camera work for the time by the old master Charles Lang, an interesting court drama, with a good main actor, but with weaknesses in individual aspects of the narrative structure and a poor focus in the overall project.