The Story On Page One

A potentially explosive courtroom drama is ruined by inept direction, a wordy script, and gross miscasting, except for Hayworth, Dunnock, Squire, and Ryder. Odets hadn't directed a film since his first, NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART, many years before, and his rustiness behind the megaphone was immediately apparent. It was the kind of direction that Odets the writer would have written an angry letter about; there were more loose ends dangling than one finds on a $25 suit. He'd intended it to be a play and worked on it between assignments; then Wald and studio chief Goetz asked him to make it into a movie with himself directing. An ego as large as Odets' could not resis...