This is around the middle of the William Powell, Kay Francis teaming in the early 30s. It is one of the duller efforts of this drab canon featuring an insipid courtroom finale followed by a mawkish closing scene that simply piles on to an already non-sensical storyline.
Big time mob mouthpiece, Bill Foster (Powell) has a knack of getting cornered, dead to rights mobsters and criminals, off with his slick confident style, earning him the respect of fellow lawyers and reporters. He falls for dancer Dorothy Manners (Francis) but she is also involved with another man who takes the rap for her after she runs over and kills a pedestrian. When Foster figures out Mannners was the actual driver he bribes a juror and ruins his career to protect her.
Powell offers up a couple of sharp courtroom antics and snappy repartee early before going soft for the dame and imploding his career while Francis frets with her limited chops. There's some superfluous editing and exposition to put a little more weight on the film that makes little sense and the supporting characters in this early sound come across stilted most of the time with cloying jargon. For the Defense has no defense, it's guilty of disappointing..
Big time mob mouthpiece, Bill Foster (Powell) has a knack of getting cornered, dead to rights mobsters and criminals, off with his slick confident style, earning him the respect of fellow lawyers and reporters. He falls for dancer Dorothy Manners (Francis) but she is also involved with another man who takes the rap for her after she runs over and kills a pedestrian. When Foster figures out Mannners was the actual driver he bribes a juror and ruins his career to protect her.
Powell offers up a couple of sharp courtroom antics and snappy repartee early before going soft for the dame and imploding his career while Francis frets with her limited chops. There's some superfluous editing and exposition to put a little more weight on the film that makes little sense and the supporting characters in this early sound come across stilted most of the time with cloying jargon. For the Defense has no defense, it's guilty of disappointing..