Evelyn Prentice by William K. Howard (1934)
28 July 2008Another serious drama with William Powell and Myrna Loy, this one a courtroom drama that has a man having to try to save his wife, when he founds she may have murdered someone who wanted to have an affair with her, and he is her only chance. This is really powerful film with great performances. We really see how unhappy Loy is, and believing her her husband has been cheating on her, and liking some attention from a good looking man, and we see her horror at hiding that she killed him. Wow. Really a great film all the way around.
Defense attorney John Prentice (WIlliam Powell) is a powerful New York lawyer who spends all his time working and not with his lovely wife Evelyn (Myrna Loy) or their daughter Dorothy (Cora Sue Collins). John manages to get an acquittal in a manslaughter murder for the beautiful Nancy Harrison (Rosalind Russell) who then tries all she can to seduce him. Evelyn goes out to a club with her best friend Amy Drexel (Una Merkel) where she meets a man named Lawrence Kennard (Harvey Stephens), not knowing he is married, and is trying to con her for blackmail. Still she doesn’t do anything until she gets a note from John’s train with a watch in it that says “To Nancy, from John” and she realizes he is cheating, so she starts to see Lawrence, though never does anything to compromise herself. Amy shows John the watch, and he is beside himself, because it is not from him, but a ploy by Nancy Harrison to break up his marriage so she can get him, and he plans to try and patch up the marriage, and he invites Evelyn and Cora on a long trip to Europe. They are going to go, but Lawrence calls Evelyn again, and she goes to break it off from him for good. He shows her 3 letters from her that could be misconstrued, and he wants $15000 for them. Evelyn grabs a gun from the desk. Lawrence’s girlfriend Judith Wilson (Isabel Jewel) then comes in the kitchen and hears a gunshot, and Evelyn runs. When she hears that Judith has been accused of the murder she is crushed.
REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…
Evelyn convinces John to hold off on the trip and to defend Judith. John learns that Kennard was seeing the wife of a prominent man, and that he kept a diary, which he tries to locate. And Evelyn is freaking out and ready to give herself up.
The landlady of the building comes over as well, and she almost recognizes Evelyn, but not quite.
During the DA’s summation John gets the diary which points to his wife as the woman, and he is crushed, but even more when she walks in, and tells the court that she killed Kennard by accident in a struggle.
John then re-questions Judith, because this makes some of her testimony wrong, and finally gets her to admit that in fact she did shoot Kennard after Evelyn left. Evelyn had completely missed him, and he fell over in shock. And she shot him when she came in and knew what he was doing. John convinces the jury that it was self defense, and gets her acquitted.
Evelyn is crushed and thinks John will leave her, but he tells her she is forgiven, and they all plan on leaving for Europe the next day.
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Wow, this was a really good film! Highly recommended.
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