It was somewhat comical to see the full screen opening credit given Humphrey Bogart in this re-release version from Guaranteed Pictures. One of the mainstays of the public domain bargain bin, "Call It Murder" provides an early look at the future star in a limited role, which in retrospect could have been played by virtually anyone.
Bogey's character is a minor hood named Gar Boni, caught in a predicament that requires him to leave town after getting involved with the daughter of a jury foreman. We don't find out much about his circumstances but they must be grim, an accomplice responds to Gar's penchant for baseball by asking - "Hey kid, they got any bulletproof grandstands out there?"
Throughout the trial, Stella Weldon (Sidney Fox) finds herself at odds with her father's role; he was able to steer the jury to find Ethel Saxon (Helen Flint) guilty of murder by virtue of pre-meditation. The entire film is used to explore Weldon's (O.P. Heggie) resolve with the verdict in the face of public disapproval and mounting controversy over Saxon's execution. It provides the set up for his own daughter's circumstances when she pulls the trigger on Gar, a case of the jilted lover lashing out. Did she have time to think about what she would do, or was it an instinctive crime of passion?
Overall, the film could have used better pacing, there were moments that seemed to drag incessantly. I was intrigued though by an interesting use of camera angles in a scene where Gar's departure from Stella is reflected in a mirror at the bottom of the staircase in the Weldon home. The picture might also have gotten more mileage out of the device of cutting between scenes of Weldon's conscience bound pacing with that of the doomed Saxon in her prison cell. The idea was a good one but was buried too quickly to make the point it could have.
In it's way, the movie is a viable pre-cursor to the noir films of the following decade, it's dark and brooding, with the female lead encountering desperation as her payoff, whether or not D.A. Plunkett (Moffat Johnston) succeeds in digging her out of a mess. Her father meanwhile is left to wrestle his own conscience over the quandary of whether justice for one ought to be the basis of justice for all. An interesting moral dilemma as well as a legal one, the story works to confound us all if faced with the same situation.
Bogey's character is a minor hood named Gar Boni, caught in a predicament that requires him to leave town after getting involved with the daughter of a jury foreman. We don't find out much about his circumstances but they must be grim, an accomplice responds to Gar's penchant for baseball by asking - "Hey kid, they got any bulletproof grandstands out there?"
Throughout the trial, Stella Weldon (Sidney Fox) finds herself at odds with her father's role; he was able to steer the jury to find Ethel Saxon (Helen Flint) guilty of murder by virtue of pre-meditation. The entire film is used to explore Weldon's (O.P. Heggie) resolve with the verdict in the face of public disapproval and mounting controversy over Saxon's execution. It provides the set up for his own daughter's circumstances when she pulls the trigger on Gar, a case of the jilted lover lashing out. Did she have time to think about what she would do, or was it an instinctive crime of passion?
Overall, the film could have used better pacing, there were moments that seemed to drag incessantly. I was intrigued though by an interesting use of camera angles in a scene where Gar's departure from Stella is reflected in a mirror at the bottom of the staircase in the Weldon home. The picture might also have gotten more mileage out of the device of cutting between scenes of Weldon's conscience bound pacing with that of the doomed Saxon in her prison cell. The idea was a good one but was buried too quickly to make the point it could have.
In it's way, the movie is a viable pre-cursor to the noir films of the following decade, it's dark and brooding, with the female lead encountering desperation as her payoff, whether or not D.A. Plunkett (Moffat Johnston) succeeds in digging her out of a mess. Her father meanwhile is left to wrestle his own conscience over the quandary of whether justice for one ought to be the basis of justice for all. An interesting moral dilemma as well as a legal one, the story works to confound us all if faced with the same situation.