Paularoc Review of Guilty Hands

Guilty Hands (1931)

Barrymore's performance the reason to see this movie

[6/10 · 4 June 2012]

This movie gets off to a good start: we hear but do not see a man (Lionel Barrymore with his so distinctive voice) expound as to whether or not murder is ever justified and if the perfect murder can be committed. Barrymore as Richard grant is a former District Attorney who has prosecuted many murderers. He is on his way to an estate to draw up a new will for his client Gordon Rich (Mowbray). Mowbray convincingly portrays a truly nasty and repulsive human being who informs Grant that he plans to marry Grant's daughter. Grant threatens to kill him. The daughter's (Babs) attraction to Mowbray to the point where she insists she will marry him is unfathomable. This is, for me, the weakest part of the plot. Rich ends up dead and his mistress Marjorie West (Francis) insists that it was murder despite Grant's persuasive argument that it was suicide. Second weak plot point – West's hysterical insistence that it was murder is way overdone and not believable and her doing the "noble" thing at the end of the movie does not ring true. The ending was a shocker (although kinda silly) and, in hindsight, I should have seen it coming. It was Barrymore's performance that made this movie for me. There was one plot devise that falls into the category of "what a coincidence." The same week I saw this movie, I also watched Boston Blackie's Chinese Venture. Although each had a slightly different spin, both movies used the same basic gimmick to establish alibis. A gimmick I don't remember seeing in any other movie and to see it twice in one week was weird.