CROSS-EXAMINATION

US, 1932, 74 minutes, Black-and-white.
H.B.Warner, Sally Blane, Natalie Moorhead, Edmund Breese, Don Dillaway, Sarah Padden.
Directed by Richard Thorpe.


Cross-examination is a brief film of the early 1930s directed by Richard Thorpe who was to have a successful career for the next quarter of a century or more, many dramas and, in the 1950s, some mediaeval action films with Robert Taylor like Knights of the Ground Table and Quentin Durward.

This is the equivalent of a filmed play, most of the action taking place in a court room during a trial, with flashbacks to the events during the testimony of each of the witnesses.

A wealthy man has been murdered, his son is considered the main suspect and is on trial. Witnesses include the housekeeper and a lazy maid who turns out to be her daughter. There is also the butler, pompous in a quasi-British style in his answers. There are also the police as well is the widow of the murdered man.

The strength of the film is in the performance of H. B. Warner (DeMille’s Jesus in The King of Kings, also appearing in Sunset Boulevard amongst many films). He brings strength to the character of the defending lawyer.

There are many interchanges throughout the hearing, objections overruled and sustained, the young man himself being interrogated, the story of his clashing with his father, his wanting to marry a young woman, demanding his share of his father’s wealth in diamonds.

All is cleared up when a woman calls out from the public, her turning out to be the mother of the young man, having had an affair with the wealthy man. And, of course, by this stage, the audience realises that she has confronted the murdered man, struggled with him, shot him, taken the diamonds.

An interesting example of court proceedings in the early 20th century.