A poorly written and poorly acted courtroom drama about a millionaire’s son on trial for his father’s murder.
Emory Wells is murdered. His son David’s trial features a lot of flashbacks to the night of the crime. The first witness is the housekeeper who heard a shot and then discovered the body. The parade of witnesses continues. Family attorney Warren Slade says he was there to talk to Emory about a new will.
The original one left a hundred thousand dollar trust fund to David and different amounts to the servants. The new one cuts all the servants out and leaves David only a dollar. Earlier David called and said he was coming over. He shows up and Emory asks Slade to hang around because there’s something else he wants to discuss.
Slade goes upstairs and waits in Emory’s wife’s bedroom. It’s not shown but you can guess they’re fooling around. Things crawl along until David takes the stand. Now we get a possible motive for the murder. After that he clams up.
Time for a surprise witness. That’s followed by a very boring summation from defense attorney Gerald Waring (H.B.Warner). The jury stays awake long enough to deliver a verdict. This leads to a twist that’s supposed to be a three hankie ending. The movie only runs an hour but it’s not worth wasting the time. H.B.Warner is normally a good actor but here he just goes through the motions.
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