Lady in the Death House (1944)

"This isn't one of those tough cases which depends on clues.", 29 September 2014

As the movie opens, Mary (Jean Parker) is making her way to the electric chair. Crimanologist/psychologist Charles Finch (Lionel Atwill) believes Mary to be innocent, but is running out of time to prove it. To make matter worse, Mary's boyfriend is the State's executioner and will throw the switch on Mary. Can Mary be saved in time?

Lady in the Death House is far from the worst of the Poverty Row films I've seen, but it still has a number or problems. First, there are far too many utterly ridiculous plot points. To start with, Mary's boyfriend is (conveniently) the executioner. Why not get someone else to do this one? Ridiculous! The witnesses used at the trial that help convict Mary saw the murder through a solid shade, meaning they only saw a silhouette. Any first year law student could have poked holes in this eyewitness evidence. Ridiculous! Next, as evidence is gathered that will clear Mary, the Governor, the only person who can stop her execution, has (inconveniently) stopped for a Denver sandwich and can't be reached. Again, ridiculous! There are many more of these ridiculous moments that make much of the movie . . . ridiculous.

That's not to say it's all bad. Lady in the Death House does feature better than expected (at least for this kind of movie) acting. Lionel Atwill is the kind of actor that's always good. It's an interesting change of pace seeing him play the hero. Jean Parker, Douglas Fowley, and Marcia Mae Jones hold up their end and give solid performances. Another plus is the "look" of the film. A lot of these Poverty Row films look like they were shot on the same dirty, poorly lit set. Not here. Sets and lighting look better than the budget would suggest. Finally, I thought the use of flashbacks was a nice way to tell the story of Lady in the Death House. We see Mary headed to the electric chair, but have to wait 50+ minutes to see if she really is put to death. Quite nice.

Overall, the bad outweighs the good and I'm left rating the movie a 4/10.

4/10