Ladies of the Jury (1932)

Thanks for the memories!

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

In New Jersey, hidden from camera range, ex-chorus girl Jill Esmond (as Yvette Gordon) kills her husband. She is charged with murder, but claims the gun went off accidentally. The case goes to jury trial. Despite being pushy and over-talkative, wealthy society matron Edna May Oliver (as Mrs. Crane) is accepted as a juror. She creates chaos in the courtroom. As you will surely guess, Ms. Oliver has a contrary opinion in the deliberation room. Oliver would be more amusing if the comedy worked. For example, have Oliver blurt out a question from the jury box and be overruled; an Oliver muttering and mugging after being scolded would be funnier. This was based on a play, so RKO and director Lowell Sherman presumably adhered to the original. It was titled "Ladies of the Jury" too, despite having a jury consisting of both "ladies and gentlemen." A better title would have been "Lady of the Jury", although even that is a judgment call.**** Ladies of the Jury (2/5/32) Lowell Sherman ~ Edna May Oliver, Jill Esmond, Helene Millard, Leyland Hodgson

I watched this film for one reason--Edna May Oliver. Cinephiles in the know adore this actresses films--even if she's pretty much forgotten today. However, this courtroom drama turned out to have a lot of shortcomings--mostly because the courtroom procedures were completely ridiculous. No courtroom on this planet is run this way and no judge is that stupid! For example, the lady on trial for murder CONSTANTLY interrupts the proceedings and even chases the jurors as they leave the box to deliberate--begging them to find her innocent!! As for the lawyers, the argue with each other openly in court and scream and yell at witnesses! And, a couple of the jurors make inappropriate comments during the trial that clearly would have had them disqualified. Once in the jury room, most of the jurors seemed much less intelligent than Mr. Potatohead! Now I don't mind a little leeway here, but all this ruined the film for me--most of this wasn't funny and just seemed dumb.Believe it or not, this totally brainless movie was reworked into the teleplay and movie "12 Angry Men"--a movie classic!!! I watch that instead, as despite having Oliver, "Ladies of the Jury" is junk.

A complicated murder trial is argued and decided in record time--just over an hour--in this RKO potboiler, leavened by the presence of Edna May Oliver, harrumphing and lip-pursing with her characteristic panache. But jeez, if this is American justice, I fear for the court system. As the most influential juror, Ms. Oliver decides the defendant (Jill Esmond, then married to Laurence Olivier, and employing a sturdy French accent) is innocent because her "women's intuition" tells her so. And the other jurors--including an annoying Ken Murray as a real estate tycoon, a more annoying Roscoe Ates stuttering, and Cora Witherspoon as a dowdy miss we're supposed to dislike because she wears a man's suit--come around to her side of thinking for the tritest reasons: they like her, or they like each other, or they're offended by something some other opposing juror said, or something about the defendant reminds them of someone they love. I've been on juries, and at least we were a little more analytical than that. The panel finally retires to the scene of the crime, where a highly contrived finish (including a hidden sliding wall, borrowed from RKO's horror department) leads them to the right verdict, uttered over the closing credits. It's a cheap-looking little movie, abundant in juror stereotypes; only Guinn Williams, unbilled, as a blue-collar garage mechanic, creates anything like a real person.

LADIES OF THE JURY is a little programmer boosted by the performance of leading player EDNA MAY OLIVER as a Bostonian aristocrat who is allowed to ask questions of the woman on trial for her life (JILL ESMOND), accused of murdering her husband.Edna May is the only member of the jury who believes the woman "not guilty" on the first ballot. The balance of the courtroom scenes show how she turns everyone around to thinking differently.Surprisingly, GUINN ("BIG BOY") WILLIAMS, who livens up the proceedings with some characteristic humor and facial expressions, is not even credited in the film's cast. Among the supporting players, he's the one that stands out.Unfortunately, the script is uneven and the treatment is less than routine with the outcome assured. The abrupt ending makes no impact at all even though the last word goes to Miss Oliver.The humor is scanty and it's surprising to see KEN MURRAY cast as a flippant juror whose attempt at comedy is not really successful.