Illegal
Directed by Lewis Allen
Written by W.R. Burnett and James R. Webb from a story by Frank J. Collins
1955/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing/My DVD collection
[box] Victor Scott: Well, every time you go into a courtroom, it’s a gamble.
Frank Garland: I’m the house, Victor. I never gamble![/box]
This film gives us another solid performance from Edward G. Robinson and the debut of Jayne Mansfield. Otherwise, it is eye-rolling stuff.
As the film begins, Victor Scott (Robinson) is a District Attorney with a burning drive to win at all costs. His most recent success is convicting a man of murder on some pretty flimsy evidence and sending him to the chair. At the last minute, Victor learns that a gangster has confessed to the crime and tries to call the execution off but it is too late. Devastated, Victor quits his job and turns to the bottle. His able assistant/ward Ellen Miles (Nina Foch) is unable to comfort him and he advises her to marry another lawyer from the DA’s office, Ray Borden (Hugh Marlowe). Despite the fact that Ellen is actually in love with the much older Victor, she does.
After his drunken bender lands him in court for disorderly behavior on a charge that should have been assault, Victor starts work as a defense attorney. His drive to win is undiminished and he turns to ever more shady methods of achieving an acquittal. Eventually, an embezzler turns to him for help. Victor manages to coerce the victim bank into accepting less than half the money in exchange for an agreement not to prosecute. It turns out that the bank is actually a front for gangster Frank Garland (Albert Dekker) and Victor has himself a new client. This serves his-new found greed nicely until another murder gives Victor the most important case of his life. With Mansfield as Garland’s “protege”/secretary.
The non-sequitors in this movie are mind-boggling. One of the most egregious is when Victor sucker-punches a witness in court to “prove” that he could have been unconscious when a fight took place. Instead of Victor being disbarred, the case is dismissed! There are many more. Still, I wouldn’t call any film with this cast a total loss.
Trailer
