A Woman Is the Judge

Frieda Inescourt is a judge on her state's criminal court. She has a secret, though. Twenty years ago, she was married and had a little girl. Then she discovered her husband was a brook. He left and took the baby with her. Ever since then, she has had a cake for the little girl. It's a secret known only by her faithful maid, Beryl Mercer. Now she is presiding in a case of a major criminal, Arthur Loft. He knows the secret, because Miss Inescourt's husband was one of his gang then, and after his death, the daughter, Rochelle Hudson has continued to be. Loft provides Miss Hudson copies of the papers, and orders her to go to Miss Inescourt to blackmail her. Miss Hudson refuses; her mother is her one point of pride. She demands the originals, but Loft refuses. She goes to his apartment to get them, and Loft is dead,

It's a good, if melodramatic script by Karl Brown, competently directed by Nick Grinde. Grinde was one of the competent journeyman directors, who helmed one Oscar winner, How To Sleep and never quite made the grade to A pictures. Nonetheless, he handles the depressed philosophy of Mayo Methot as "A girl's gotta live" with appropriate despair, and gives Otto Kruger one of his rare nice-guy roles as a prosecuting attorney who yearns for Miss Inescourt.