Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned)   CLICK HERE to buy from   CLICK HERE to buy from V.O.D. Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!

Jim Stowell (Warren William) is the town's most successful and most prominent district attorney, and a man who sees death sentences as badges of honour - much to the dismay of his wife Lucy (Gail Patrick), who feels neglected due to his many late hours at the office and his inability to not think about his job. When he's shot at by the associate of a mobster (Matty Fain) he has sent to death row but rather miraculously survives with his attacker dead, he seems to have second thoughts, promises to make Lucy his top priority, and promises her a romantic holiday - only to be on the day of their departure be presented with what he perceives as an open-and-shut case, that of MacAllen (Ralph Morgan), a man who has shot his wife in a fit of jealousy and now pleads legal insanity. Stowell thinks it was pre-meditated though and does his best to send him to the chair - even if the guy's story moves pretty much everyone, including Lucy, as it's the story of a man who has neglected his wife for work, whom the eventual realisation that his wife cheats on him drove over the brink. Stowell is unmoved by this of course, and he also fails to see the the parallels to his own life - until he finds Lucy in front of her mirror, just as MacAllen claims to have found his, all made up and peparing to leave the house, and just like MacAllen, Stowell then follows her, finds her with another man (William Lundigan), and without knowing the (actually perfectly innocent) motives for this, almost shoots her, just like MacAllen did - and this is where he begins to understand ...

The next day in court, Stowell changes his charge from murder to manslaughter, and suddenly, Lucy, who was about to leave him, loves him again, and he has finally learned his lesson ...

Lillian Yarbo, one of the busier coloured actresses in the era's major league Hollywood, plays Stowell and Lucy's maid, but the very racist treatment of her character is a little strong to swallow not only for today's audiences.

Basically, this is a film that falls in two: The first part is light-weight and almost comedic, and Warren William really shines in the role as the slick yet likeable district attorney, and the direction's really as spirited as the story. And then there's the secong part, where William's character is to learn his lesson, and on a story level it's as on-your-nose as it can get while William himself seems to go stiff and the direction goes a little too much for the all too obvious, to ultimately make the point that was announced very clearly halfway through the movie. It would have been a really interesting movie, would it have kept the levity of the first half throughout, but like this it's a slight disappointment.

By the way, James Whale's second adaptation of Ladislas Fodor's play The Kiss Before the Mirror, the first one having been 1933's The Kiss Before the Mirror, but while the two movies share the same core, they differ widely in their respective actual plotlines.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

Feeling lucky? Want to search any of my partnershops yourself for more, better results? (commissions earned)

The links below will take you just there!!!

Find Wives Under Suspicion at the amazons ...   amazon.com   amazon.co.uk   amazon.de Looking for imports? Find Wives Under Suspicion here ...   eThaiCD.com Your shop for all things Thai Something naughty? (Must be over 18 to go there!)   find Wives Under Suspicion at adultvideouniverse.com

Thanks for watching !!!