After winning an Oscar® on A FREE SOUL /’31, largely for his lawyer’s self-immolating guilt-ridden confession at the end, Lionel Barrymore repeats the stunt in lamentable fashion here. John Meehan’s script, no doubt, reverse-engineered from that rehash, works its way to the beginning with enough talk for three pics. Again, Lionel’s a widowed lawyer with a clinging daughter (this time a saccharine thing played by debuting non-starter Diane Sinclair) who switches careers to play Populist politics in the U.S. Senate. A babe-in-the-woods on the Washington circuit, he takes his cues from ultra-connected society swell Karen Morley as guide, consort & then younger wife, unaware he’s being played for a sucker. Meantime, she’s getting big money bribes and cover for a longstanding affair with Nils Aster. But it all starts to come apart when she overplays her hand, pushing Barrymore to quit his office and run legal errands for corrupt power manipulators. Fun to see such a Populist angle at conservative M-G-M, but the weak, unorganized screenplay & Charles Brabin’s laissez-faire megging only encourages Barrymore to overcompensate with tics & mannerisms, constantly fiddling with his lanky hair, pulling on his face as if it were taffy, his whole body a semaphore signal. A wasted opportunity on the only romantic lead M-G-M ever gave him.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Try WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND/’32 with Lee Tracy as a newbie Congressman trying to do the right thing in an utterly corrupt D.C.
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