Looking at that title, one would be forgiven for thinking that this is a courtroom drama. However, much to my pleasant surprise, there isn't a single shot of a single courtroom in the whole thing. The title is something I would change (an observation I don't often make), but underneath it is another Hitchcockian adventure in the underbelly of interwar England where the wrong man gets caught in between a murder and his own safety.
Chris Jensen (Patric Knowles) works at an interior designer as an office boy. He's fallen in love with a girl, Mamie (Mabel Poulton) whom he gives a diamond ring he hasn't yet paid for, feeling like a promotion is just around the corner from his boss, Mr. Stevens (Frederick Piper). However, she takes the ring, runs off with another man, leaving Chris with the bill for the ring he doesn't even have anymore, a bill due to the nefarious Maurice (Morris Harvey). However, when Chris goes to negotiate the payments, something he can't being to pay back because Mr. Stevens denied him the promotion, he finds Maurice dead, shot by a mysterious woman who ends up being Mrs. Stevens (Beatrix Thomas). Borrowing money because her husband won't let her spend the way she wants.
So, there's a murder. Chris knows who it is, but he can't give her up because Mr. Stevens could fire him for embroiling himself as well as Mr. Stevens in scandal, besides Maurice will be missed by no one. He tries to forget what's going on, striking up a romance with the designer Molly (Glennis Lorimer), and keep his head down. Meanwhile, the police are on the case, looking for clues.
What's interesting about this is how we know exactly who the killer is from the beginning, and it's all about this dance around wanting Chris to turn her in, understanding his precarious situation, and watching as Mrs. Stevens steadily self-destructs. Freed from her illicit debts but not freed from her penny-pinching husband, she's egged on by her friend Ella (Googie Withers), putting her in direct conflict with her husband, all while Chris' conscience weighs more heavily on him and the police get closer through investigation of the gun used to kill Maurice.
The plotting is mostly very tight around the movements of the police closer to Mrs. Stevens. I say mostly tight because it relies on her taking the gun she used, throwing it off a bridge, and it immediately falling into a passing boat, the occupants of which take the gun to the police. Coincidence isn't something I'm totally against in drama. It's perfectly acceptable in setting things up, but this is kind of the middle ground where it's about making the drama more difficult (fine). However, it feels so convenient that it's kind of unbelievable. It's not the film's greatest moment, but it's over and done with quickly.
The final couple of reels, though, where Mrs. Stevens feels the most cornered with Mr. Stevens asking too many questions about the gun she can no longer account for and his continued pressure for her to stop spending money and living flagrantly out of order with his moral code (she parties with Ella), is where we get this specific level of detail around her efforts that ends up feeling most Hitchcockian. The devil is in the details, and we watch as Mrs. Stevens improvises a murder, starting with sleeping pills and needing to evolve as he insists on going to the police station, not quite hobbled by the pills she secretly fed him, and needing to involve a car, a closed garage door, and time.
So, we get our ticking clock as Chris and Molly (now in on the situation) stop by to investigate while the Stevens maid, Mamie (Mabel Poulton), who quit to preserve her character when Mrs. Stevens accused her of stealing the missing pistol and ran to the police. So, Mrs. Stevens' efforts feel like she flailing, but not completely without some method to it. She could almost have gotten away with it, sneaking by suspicions if only things had worked out a slightly different way.
And that last twenty minutes really makes the film. Everything before that had been perfectly fine. I had few complaints, mostly about the coincidence of the gun drop as well as the fact that Mamie never comes back into the film, making the opening feel like something of a waste. However, it's actually pretty solid stuff overall, and the ending is kind of great.
