User reviews

Made when the Studios were Mostly, well, Studio Bound and Early Talkies were, well, a lot of Talk, this one had the Pleasure of an Actor who could Really Talk. John Barrymore had been doing it ever since Pictures Moved.

Coupled with a Heavy Stage Experience, He became one of the most Respected Actors of His Era. Although Surprisingly never Nominated for an Academy Award (He famously said they were afraid I would show up drunk and embarrass them and myself).

This Film also had the Advantage of a Pre-Code Freedom to Exercise some later to be Forbidden Behavior like Premarital Sex, and other Innuendos. But it is Barrymore's Charisma and Naturalism that Endears this Courtroom and Political Drama, also Helped by a Strong Supporting Cast.

It is Less Ham than usual for 'The Profile" and the Movie has a lot of Long Dialog Scenes that are Fascinating to Watch. This makes for a somewhat Stilted but Compelling Drama that is an Actor's Showcase and Barrymore Effortlessly Delivers.

I only wish my mother were still alive so I could tell her I saw Helen Twelvetrees in a movie. I can just hear her now. "Helen Twelvetrees!!" That is a name out of the way, way distant past.

Twelvetrees appears in this precode film, "State's Attorney" with John Barrymore.

Barrymore is Tom Cardigan, attorney for the mob. Tom falls for June Perry (Twelvetrees) and she becomes his mistress. She tries to redeem him. Tom's boss, Vanny Powers (Boyd), thinks Cardigan should become District Attorney. There, he can really get the fix in for Powers.

Tom is elected He breaks up with June and takes up with the daughter (Jill Esmond) of a political boss, Ulrich. A big problem arises when Powers is arrested for murder and goes on trial. As far as Tom getting him off, it's going to be tough. June was a witness to the crime.

Over the top courtroom scenes, the style of the day, take a major role in the film. Barrymore had a very modern acting technique - he is always wonderful and never seems overdone unless it's deliberate, like the impresario in "Twentieth Century."

Always love to catch John Barrymore in a film.

As a bit of trivia, Jil Esmond, who plays the political boss' Ulrich's daughter, was a British actress and the first wife of Laurence Olivier.

Barrymore is an attorney with little fixed principles except a taste for women and booze. One night, he defends a prostitute at night court. She comes home with him, and the two live together openly. After becoming a D.A.t hough he leaves her until he suffers a crisis of conscience that comes about in an unusual way, but his resolution is more unusual still.

This is a classic Pre Code drama. The openness and acceptance of an alternative (at that time) lifestyle, and moral ambiguity mark this as a film coming from when America was going through one of its roughest times--the Great Depression--and didn't know how things will work out.

Barrymore's acting is wonderful, and this is one of his best pieces of work in the talkies. This and its unusual theme mark this as an interesting piece for the early film fan.

Although there was nothing explicitly sexual in the dialog of State'a Attorney this film definitely belongs in the 'Before the Code' category of films. It was only in post World War II America that you could have a hero with all the frailties of John Barrymore and I'm not talking about Barrymore's drinking.

Helen Twelvetrees plays the usual wronged innocent who comes to top flight criminal attorney Barrymore when he's slumming in night court. He takes her case and then takes up with her and she convinces him to go over to the other side and start prosecuting the people he previously defended like top mobster William Boyd. He and Boyd have considerable history going back to when they were kids.

The Code would end heroes like John Barrymore's character. In his quest for power and respectability he dumps Twelvetrees with whom he was living without benefit of clergy and takes up with quirky Jill Esmond who is rich and her old man Oscar Apfel is powerful. The union does not last long, but no movie hero once the Code was in place would either live with a woman without being married to her or dump said woman strictly for his own ambitions.

Early sound Barrymore and he had not given in to dissipation as he would in his last years. It's an old fashioned acting style but still worthy of giving a look to and enjoying. It was a follow up for Jack possibly in response to brother Lionel playing a lawyer and winning an Oscar for a dramatic courtroom climax in A Free Soul. He also has a climatic courtroom scene, and while not as dramatic it was affective indeed for the junior Barrymore brother.

Whiskey-soaked criminal defense lawyer John Barrymore (as Tom Cardigan) goes to night court and defends beautiful blonde streetwalker Helen Twelvetrees (as June Perry) as a favor to his racketeering pal William Boyd (as Valentine 'Vanny' Powers). Although he appears to still be a little tipsy, Mr. Barrymore is a smooth operator in the courtroom. He gets Ms. Twelvetrees off and she moves in as, we presume, Barrymore's monogamous mistress. Twelvetrees encourages Barrymore to stop drinking and concentrate on his career. That advice works on different levels. Barrymore decides to go legit and becomes a successful district attorney with an eye on the governor's chair...

This is a witty courtroom drama with Barrymore in fine form. The legendary actor's fondness for alcohol neatly weaves into the story. Barrymore was still able to perform while drinking, although the deterioration would soon become apparent. Rowland Brown and Gene Fowler enliven the script with great lines and moral dilemmas. The characters "Tom" and "June" are allowed an option to live "in sin" because it works for them. Leggy murder suspect Mary Duncan (Nora Dean) overplays feverishly, but she's a lot of fun. Jill Esmond (aka Mrs. Laurence Olivier) is oddly giddy over Barrymore and a younger tenor. Director George Archainbaud flatters his cast and keeps it moving.

****** State's Attorney (5/5/32) George Archainbaud ~ John Barrymore, Helen Twelvetrees, William 'Stage' Boyd, Jill Esmond

John Barrymore's character, Tom Cardigan, bounces from bad to good, bad to good throughout "State's Attorney." The RKO story is good, but the film has remnants of production qualities from the silent era. All of the cast are OK, but none much better than that. Barrymore's Cardigan mirrors his own life of heavy drinking. He had been a heavy drinker since his teen years, and by age 50 for this film, he was an alcoholic.

Still able to perform, he would go on to make many more films before dying 10 years later of cirrhosis of the liver and pneumonia. Only a few of those would be top performances.

The life of a real lawyer, William J. Fallon, may have been the inspiration for this story. Fallon was known as the "Great Mouthpice."He was a prominent criminal lawyer who defended many homicide cases that resulted in no convictions. He befriended organized crime boss Arnold Rothstein who was implicated in the Black Sox Scandal. Fallon's lifestyle involved heavy drinking. He was just 41 years old when he died – probably from alcohol and other effects.

... from RKO and director George Archainbaud in which John Barrymore stars as high-powered attorney Tom Cardigan. When he grows weary of defending hoods like his chief client Valentine Powers (William "Stage" Boyd), he accepts an offer to become a state prosecutor.

Barrymore's drinking problems off-screen seem to be bleeding on-screen, as his character spends at least half the film somewhat soused. He's still very good, though, and very sharp in the climactic courtroom scenes. Jill Esmond, best known today for being Laurence Olivier's first wife, doesn't impress much as a flighty lover. Helen Twelvetrees comes across much better as a former streetwalker getting her life straight thanks to Barrymore. I'm not usually too fond of Boyd, but he's better here, or at least his inherent unlikeability comes in handy playing a heel.

The reissue title seems deliberately prophetic, as hot-shot lawyer Barrymore's perpetual drunkenness is obvious throughout this late star vehicle for Barrymore, who throughout usually has his left profile to the camera while his perpetually moving eyes and eyebrows reveal that he's not taking his outrageous antics in Court entirely seriously.

As usual the law is portrayed cynically, and along with the opulent bachelor pad he shares with Helen Twelvetress heightens the pre-Code amorality of the piece.

This provides a perfect role for John Barrymore allowing him to over-act to his heart's content with total justification and indeed believability since he's playing a one of those very theatrical lawyers who only exist in the movies. His job is to perform, his stage is the courthouse and his audience is the jury, and they love him. Behind all the bluster and bravado however lies a man discontent with how his life has turned out so he's slowly drowning himself from the inside in whiskey. As with a lot of John Barrymore's roles, the role reflects the reality of his own life which by this stage had begun its alcohol fuelled trajectory to its untimely crash landing.

Although it's fun to see the master at work, it's not a gripping film. The rest of the cast are instantly forgettable and the plot, which could have been written up over drinks in the bar on the way to the studio, is so predictable and routine you could set your watch by it - the plot however is not what the film is. It's a character study of a complicated man and how he has to change to cope with his complicated life. A couple of years later he made another very similar film (directed by William Wyler) in which he again played a lawyer, again having to change his ways: COUNCILLOR AT LAW. That motion picture is nothing too special and from some accounts because Mr B was so drunk at times, he required propping up but he is spectacularly good in that one and the story is much more interesting than in this.

Tom Cardigan (John Barrymore) was a smooth, sermonizing, Clarence Darrow type of defense attorney. Like any wealthy defense attorney, he had rich guilty clients. In Cardigan's case, his main financier was Vanny Powers (William 'Stage' Boyd). Cardigan used Powers to finance his lifestyle and his own mouth to rise to fame. Cardigan was so good that he was wanted for the job as state's attorney and then maybe even governor.

After Cardigan jumped to the other side of the attorney aisle he tried to distance himself from Powers. The drumbeat of his governorship was growing and a guy like Powers would be bad for his campaign. He also needed to make a big splash with a big conviction. For that he tried Nora Dean (Mary Duncan) for murdering her husband.

Opposed to his beating up on Nora on the witness stand was Cardigan's girlfriend June (Helen Twelvetrees). Cardigan met June while defending her from a prostitution charge (though they never said prostitution), so June knew what it was like to be in the defense chair.

In favor of his attempts to hang Nora was a high society woman named Lillian (Jill Esmond). A relationship with her and her father were just what Cardigan would need to make it to the governor's mansion.

If anything this movie highlighted how a brilliant lawyer can get a conviction or an acquittal depending on what team he/she is playing for. Cardigan was that gifted at swaying juries and rattling witnesses.

I typically love courtroom dramas. This one was just OK. There wasn't much courtroom to it, just mostly the social climb of Cardigan and the moves he made along the way. Like anyone hopping into politics there are compromises to be made and images to protect. Sometimes, to protect one's own image a person has to ruin someone else. Cardigan had to make that choice as well.

Free on Odnoklassniki.

According to IMDb, John Barrymore's character in "State's Attorney" was based on a real attorney, dapper William J. Fallon. How close the character is to Fallon, I have no idea--though I strongly suspect that Fallon's story and this one are very, very different. This is because there are LOTS of hysterics in this one--so many that you just cannot believe the film has any semblance to real life.

The film begins with Barrymore playing Attorney Tom Cardigan. Cardigan seems to be perpetually inebriated--a role to which Barrymore was well suited. However, despite his drinking*, he is an expert attorney who always seems to win. So, he's a valuable asset to mobsters and other low-lifes who need him to help them beat the rap. In the process of doing his job, he meets a woman (Helen Twelvetrees) and they fall in love. While the film never comes out and says it, it's strongly implied that she becomes his mistress.

Surprisingly, his mobster friend has an idea--make Cardigan the State's Attorney where he can be even more helpful to the mob. However, it soon becomes apparent that Cardigan means to do this job well--and not use it as a revolving door for criminals. Cardigan now is interested more in becoming the next governor as opposed to becoming a rich, satisfied lawyer. What's next? See the film.

Because it's a film about lawyers, it's not surprising there are several courtroom scenes. However, to me this was the low point of the film as too often the proceedings became ridiculously melodramatic and shrill. Folks on the witness stand begin screaming their guilt, women break down and cry and, ultimately, Cardigan makes speeches instead of defends or prosecutes. It's a shame, as Barrymore was a fine actor but these scenes tend to bring down the overall quality of the movie. Fair but it sure should have been a lot better.