Mountain Justice (1937)
** (out of 4)
Michael Curtiz directed this rather disappointing film from Warner about mountain girl Ruth Harkins (Josephine Hutchinson) who wants to help a local doctor (Guy Kibbee) build various hospitals so that the poor can have good health. Her abusive father finds out about all of this and her relationship with a New York lawyer (George Brent) so he puts a major beating on her. In self defense the daughter ends up killing her father and the trash locals want her dead too. MOUNTAIN JUSTICE has quite a bit of stuff going on in it but sadly very little of it works. Warner made all sorts of "message" pictures that often dealt with injustice as well as revenge. This film features that stuff but the entire plot is just so paper thin that it was hard to take any of it serious. The biggest problem is that this father is so mean that it's hard to believe that even these trash locals would buy into supporting him. Even if you do believe that they would, the courtroom sequence at the end is just so obvious because you know there would be so many ways for the lawyer to get the woman off these murder charges even if the trash jury convicted her. I'm not going to ruin the final act but it too really feels rushed and thrown together. The performances are another mixed bag but it seems like Brent wants nothing to do with this material. Even in some bad movies he still manages to deliver good performances but that's not the case here as he just comes across bored and wishing he was somewhere else. Hutchinson delivers a fine performance but it's not strong enough to carry the picture. Kibbee, Robert Barrat and Margaret Hamilton are all good but the screenplay really doesn't do much with their characters. There are a few effective moments including the way Curtiz uses shadows for the beating and murder. There's also an effective sequence towards the end when the rednecks decide to put masks on to kidnap the girl from jail. Still, these scenes just aren't enough to overcome all the weaker moments.
