Ladies of the Jury

Last updated

Ladies of the Jury
Ladies of the Jury poster.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Lowell Sherman
Screenplay by Marion Dix
Edward Salisbury Field
Eddie Welch
Based onLadies of the Jury
1929 play
by John Frederick Ballard
Produced by William LeBaron
Starring Edna May Oliver
Jill Esmond
Ken Murray
Roscoe Ates
Kitty Kelly
Cinematography Jack MacKenzie
Edited by Charles L. Kimball
Music by Max Steiner
Production
company
Distributed byRKO Pictures
Release date
  • February 5, 1932 (1932-02-05)
Running time
63 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Ladies of the Jury is a 1932 American pre-Code comedy film directed by Lowell Sherman and written by Marion Dix, Edward Salisbury Field and Eddie Welch based on the 1929 play of the same name by John Frederick Ballard. The film stars Edna May Oliver, Jill Esmond, Ken Murray, Roscoe Ates and Kitty Kelly. It was released on February 5, 1932 by RKO Pictures. [1]

Contents

Plot

Middle-aged Mrs. Livingston Baldwin Crane is selected to serve on a jury for the murder trial of French ex-showgirl Yvette Gordon, who is accused of killing her rich, much older husband. The prosecutor calls only two witnesses, a doctor and Mrs. Gordon's maid, Evelyn Snow. Snow testifies that after she found Mrs. Gordon kneeling beside the body of her husband holding the gun, her employer offered to pay her to attest that Mr. Gordon committed suicide. Mrs. Gordon claims that Snow had demanded money to tell the police that story. On the witness stand, Mrs. Gordon claims that she had gone away for a week but returned to her angry, suspicious husband who threatened her with a gun. She states that they struggled and the gun fired accidentally. During the testimony, Mrs. Crane asks several questions of the witnesses, which annoys judge Henry Fish. She discovers that Snow was recommended to Mrs. Gordon by Chauncey Gordon, Mr. Crane's nephew, sole relative and heir.

When the jury retires to consider a verdict, Mrs. Crane casts the sole not guilty vote. When asked why, she replies, "Woman's intuition." After much deliberation, the count is ten to two in favor of acquittal. During the deliberations, Mrs. Crane illegally passes a note to her maid Suzanne instructing her to hire a detective agency to investigate further.

When Mrs. Crane overhears jurors debating whether to switch their votes back to guilty, she recommends that they reenact the death scene. In the Gordon mansion, Chauncey Gordon refuses to pay Snow any more money until after Mrs. Gordon is found guilty. When they see the jury approaching, Snow hides Chauncey in a secret compartment. However, the jurors find him in the secret compartment by chance. A telegram arrives stating that the detective agency has discovered that Chauncey paid Snow $10,000. As a result, the jury find Mrs. Gordon not guilty.

Cast

Reception

In a contemporary review for The New York Times , critic Mordaunt Hall praised Edna May Oliver's "most amusing performance" and stated that "she is a clever enough player to deserve even a better story. But this film has a number of really funny lines and creditable portrayals are given by those in the supporting cast." [2]

TV Guide called the film an "innocuous courtroom drama" and noted that "Oliver is hilarious." [3]

Remake

The film was remade as We're on the Jury in 1937.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roscoe Arbuckle</span> American actor and comedian (1887–1933)

Roscoe Conkling "Fatty" Arbuckle was an American silent film actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter. He started at the Selig Polyscope Company and eventually moved to Keystone Studios, where he worked with Mabel Normand and Harold Lloyd as well as with his nephew, Al St. John. He also mentored Charlie Chaplin, Monty Banks and Bob Hope, and brought vaudeville star Buster Keaton into the movie business. Arbuckle was one of the most popular silent stars of the 1910s and one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood, signing a contract in 1920 with Paramount Pictures for $1,000,000 a year.

<i>12 Angry Men</i> (1957 film) 1957 American film by Sidney Lumet

12 Angry Men is a 1957 American courtroom drama film directed by Sidney Lumet, adapted from a 1954 teleplay of the same name by Reginald Rose. The film tells the story of a jury of 12 men as they deliberate the conviction or acquittal of a teenager charged with murder on the basis of reasonable doubt; disagreement and conflict among them force the jurors to question their morals and values. It stars Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley, E. G. Marshall, and Jack Warden.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kitty Kelly</span> American actress (1902–1968)

Kitty Kelly, was an American stage and film character actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edna May Oliver</span> American actress (1883–1942)

Edna May Oliver was an American stage and film actress. During the 1930s, she was one of the better-known character actresses in American films, often playing tart-tongued spinsters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jill Esmond</span> British actress (1908–1990)

Jill Esmond was an English stage and screen actress. She was the first wife of Laurence Olivier.

<i>Perfect Strangers</i> (1950 film) 1950 American comedy drama directed by Bretaigne Windust

Perfect Strangers, also released as Too Dangerous to Love in some territories, is a 1950 American comedy-drama film directed by Bretaigne Windust. Edith Sommer wrote the screenplay from an adaptation written by George Oppenheimer, based on the 1939 play Ladies and Gentlemen by Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht. The film stars Ginger Rogers and Dennis Morgan as two jurors who fall in love while sequestered during a murder trial. Thelma Ritter, Margalo Gillmore, and Anthony Ross co-star in supporting roles.

<i>Murder!</i> 1930 film

Murder! is a 1930 British thriller film co-written and directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Herbert Marshall, Norah Baring and Edward Chapman. Written by Hitchcock, his wife Alma Reville and Walter C. Mycroft, it is based on the 1928 novel Enter Sir John by Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson. It was Hitchcock's third all-talkie film, after Blackmail (1929) and Juno and the Paycock (1930).

<i>The Juror</i> 1996 American film

The Juror is a 1996 American legal thriller film based on the 1995 novel by George Dawes Green. It was directed by Brian Gibson and stars Demi Moore as a single mother picked for jury duty for a mafia trial and Alec Baldwin as a mobster sent to intimidate her. The film received highly negative reviews and Moore won a joint Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress for both her performance in this film and in Striptease.

<i>Jury Duty</i> (film) 1995 American film

Jury Duty is a 1995 American courtroom comedy film directed by John Fortenberry, written by Neil Tolkin, Barbara Williams, and Adam Small, and starring Pauly Shore, Tia Carrere, Stanley Tucci, Brian Doyle-Murray, Shelley Winters, and Abe Vigoda.

<i>Dinner at Eight</i> (1933 film) 1933 film

Dinner at Eight is a 1933 American pre-Code comedy-drama film directed by George Cukor from a screenplay by Frances Marion and Herman J. Mankiewicz, based on George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber's 1932 play of the same title. The film features an ensemble cast of Marie Dressler, John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, Lionel Barrymore, Lee Tracy, Edmund Lowe, and Billie Burke.

<i>12 Angry Men</i> (1997 film) 1997 television film directed by William Friedkin

12 Angry Men is a 1997 American made-for-television drama film directed by William Friedkin, adapted by Reginald Rose from his original 1954 teleplay of the same title. It is a remake of the 1957 film of the same name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Gordon (actress)</span> Scottish actress

Mary Gordon was a Scottish actress who mainly played housekeepers and mothers, most notably the landlady Mrs. Hudson in the Sherlock Holmes series of movies of the 1940s starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. Her body of work included nearly 300 films between 1925 and 1950.

<i>The Penguin Pool Murder</i> 1932 film

The Penguin Pool Murder is a 1932 American pre-Code comedy/mystery film starring Edna May Oliver as Hildegarde Withers, a witness in a murder case at the New York Aquarium, with James Gleason as the police inspector in charge of the case, who investigates with her unwanted help, and Robert Armstrong as an attorney representing Mae Clarke, the wife of the victim. Oliver's appearance was the first film appearance of the character of Hildegarde Withers, the schoolteacher and sleuth based on the character from the 1931 novel The Penguin Pool Murder by Stuart Palmer. It is the first in a trilogy including Murder on the Blackboard, and Murder on a Honeymoon, in which Oliver and Gleason team up for the lead roles.

<i>Shopworn</i> 1932 film

Shopworn is a 1932 American pre-Code romantic drama film directed by Nick Grinde and starring Barbara Stanwyck and Regis Toomey. Written by Jo Swerling and Robert Riskin, based on a story by Sarah Y. Mason, the film is about a poor hardworking waitress who meets and falls in love with a wealthy college student. His mother objects to the union and frames the waitress for a crime she did not commit. After serving her time, the waitress enters show business and becomes a star.

<i>Trial by Jury</i> (film) 1994 American film

Trial by Jury is a 1994 American legal thriller film directed by Heywood Gould and starring Joanne Whalley-Kilmer, Gabriel Byrne, Armand Assante and William Hurt.

<i>She Loves Me Not</i> (1934 film) 1934 film by Benjamin Glazer, Elliott Nugent

She Loves Me Not is a 1934 American comedy film directed by Elliott Nugent and starring Bing Crosby and Miriam Hopkins. Based on the novel She Loves Me Not by Edward Hope and the subsequent play by Howard Lindsay, the film is about a cabaret dancer who witnesses a murder and is forced to hide from gangsters by disguising herself as a male Princeton student. Distributed by Paramount Pictures, the film has been remade twice as True to the Army (1942) and as How to Be Very, Very Popular in (1955), the latter starring Betty Grable. The film is notable for containing one of the first major performances of Bing Crosby, and it helped launch him to future stardom. This was also the last film that Miriam Hopkins made under her contract to Paramount Pictures, which began in the early 1930s upon her arrival in Hollywood. In 1935, the film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song for "Love in Bloom", theme song of comedian Jack Benny.

On November 23, 2012, Jordan Davis, a black 17-year-old high school student, was murdered at a Gate Petroleum gas station in Jacksonville, Florida, by Michael David Dunn, a white 45-year-old software developer, following an argument over loud music played by Davis and his three friends, in what was believed to be a racially motivated shooting.

<i>They Call It Sin</i> 1932 film

They Call It Sin is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film directed by Thornton Freeland and starring Loretta Young as a farmer's daughter who follows a traveling salesman to New York City, only to discover he already is engaged.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C-Murder</span> American rapper from Louisiana

Corey Miller, better known by his stage name C-Murder, is an American rapper and songwriter. He initially gained fame in the mid-1990s as a part of his brother Master P's label No Limit Records, primarily as a member of the label's supergroup, TRU. Miller went on to release several solo albums of his own through the label, including 1998's platinum Life or Death. C-Murder has released nine albums altogether on six different labels, No Limit Records, TRU Records, Koch Records, Asylum Records, RBC Records, and Venti Uno.

<i>As in a Looking Glass</i> 1916 film by Frank Hall Crane

As in a Looking Glass is a lost 1916 American silent drama film directed by Frank Hall Crane and starring famous stage star Kitty Gordon in her motion picture debut. It was produced by and distributed by the World Film Corporation.

References

  1. "Ladies of the Jury (1932) - Overview". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved September 9, 2014.
  2. Hall, Mordaunt (April 2, 1932). "The Screen". The New York Times . p. 13.
  3. "Ladies Of The Jury Trailer, Reviews and Schedule for Ladies Of The Jury". TV Guide. Retrieved September 9, 2014.