Several years ago, TCM ran a marathon of films dealing with juries. I don't recall this film as being one of them, but fortunately, I had saved this from a late show airing from years before when syndicated TV channels showed very rare classics after midnight. Getting to it just now, I found myself treated to a film that combined melodrama, noir, tragedy and camp, and in spite of a mediocre script found myself having a really good time.
The film opens with the titled lady (an unbilled Marilyn Simms) pumping her gentleman friend with bullets. Sleazy lawyer Richard Carlson decides he wants to win the case and while selecting the jury hones in on three particular jurors he decides to bribe. There's alcoholic actress June Havoc, the unemployed Ricardo Montalban and Eduard Franz as a father whose son was lost in Czechoslovakia after the war, desperate to find him. Both Montalban and Franz have spouses who are troubled as well which plays into their willingness to be bribed.
Quite enjoyable and intriguing with several familiar character actors in smaller roles, particularly Scotty Beckett as a theater usher, Regis Toomey as Carlson's very gifted actor cohort who can change looks and personalities easily (he even fooled me into not recognizing him when he appeared to Montalban's wife, Laraine Day) and Herb Vigran as an angry juror whom Havoc actually slaps!
Dorothy Adams should be singled out in her brief performance as Simms' social secretary. I'm presuming that Ms. Simms was a model because her only other onscreen credit was as a red headed girl in "Gigi" and she doesn't say a word here. Anyone who's ever been on a jury where the verdict seems to be heading to unanimously guilty or not guilty and all of a sudden changed by one juror can relate to the frustrations seen in the last 15 minutes. This film certainly was a lot better than expected.
The film opens with the titled lady (an unbilled Marilyn Simms) pumping her gentleman friend with bullets. Sleazy lawyer Richard Carlson decides he wants to win the case and while selecting the jury hones in on three particular jurors he decides to bribe. There's alcoholic actress June Havoc, the unemployed Ricardo Montalban and Eduard Franz as a father whose son was lost in Czechoslovakia after the war, desperate to find him. Both Montalban and Franz have spouses who are troubled as well which plays into their willingness to be bribed.
Quite enjoyable and intriguing with several familiar character actors in smaller roles, particularly Scotty Beckett as a theater usher, Regis Toomey as Carlson's very gifted actor cohort who can change looks and personalities easily (he even fooled me into not recognizing him when he appeared to Montalban's wife, Laraine Day) and Herb Vigran as an angry juror whom Havoc actually slaps!
Dorothy Adams should be singled out in her brief performance as Simms' social secretary. I'm presuming that Ms. Simms was a model because her only other onscreen credit was as a red headed girl in "Gigi" and she doesn't say a word here. Anyone who's ever been on a jury where the verdict seems to be heading to unanimously guilty or not guilty and all of a sudden changed by one juror can relate to the frustrations seen in the last 15 minutes. This film certainly was a lot better than expected.