THE WOMAN CONDEMNED (1934)

We first see popular radio singer Jane Merrick (Lola Lane) as she broadcasts her last show before a long vacation, though there seems to be something a little mysterious about her departure; no one is clear when she'll be returning, and her producer (and would-be fiancé) Jim worries that someone is threatening her and that the show will lose its sponsor if she stays away too long. That night, a police call comes in about a prowler outside of Jane's apartment, and a young woman named Barbara (Claudia Dell) is arrested. At the night court, handsome cocky reporter Jerry (Richard Hemingway, pictured) feels sorry for her and, hoping to get a good story, tells the judge that she's his fiancée and has a history of playing practical jokes. The judge releases her into Jerry's custody, then insists on marrying them in the courtroom. They share a pleasant dinner before she sneaks off to Jane's place again, this time getting in through a window. She sees a mysterious man with a foreign accent apparently blackmailing her, and after the man leaves, a shot rings out, killing Jane. Barbara is caught by the police with the gun in her hand, and still won't explain herself, so Jerry goes all out to clear her name. He winds up tracking the foreign-accented man to a private sanitarium. To reveal much more would be too spoilery—suffice to say that not everyone is who or what they seem, and eventually there's a ghost (maybe).

This pre-Code melodrama is cheaply made and has a rickety plot, but I like the way things wrap up in the end, though it does involve a bit of a surprise trick and some suspension of disbelief. It bothered me that it was never made clear why Barbara was skulking around Jane's apartment in the first place. Claudia Dell is fine as Barbara; she made some 40 movies in the 1930s, mostly B-films, then retired. Busy character actor Mischa Auer (he was in 60 movies between 1930 and 1934) is the mysterious man with the foreign accent. Jason Robards Sr. is Jim and Louise Beavers has a small role as Jane's maid. The big find here is Richard Hemingway as Jerry. A Golden Gloves winning boxer in his youth, Hemingway (apparently no relation to Ernest) only made nine movies, some in bit parts, before he retired from acting in 1936. That's a shame because here, he displays a promising talent as a Jimmy Stewart type. Despite Dell getting top billing, Hemingway is really the star of the movie. The director, Dorothy Davenport, is billed as, and better known as, Mrs. Wallace Reid, widow of a silent film star who died young from morphine addiction. She's best known as a silent movie actress—over 100 short films—and for directing a couple of anti-drug films (including THE ROAD TO RUIN and seems to have retired from show business after this film. If you adjust your expectations to Poverty Row level, you’ll enjoy this. [Criterion Channel]