Pluskylang Great Film overall

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

ShangLuda Admirable film.

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

XhcnoirX Jean Parker is blackmailed because of a secret from her past. But when the blackmailer ends up dead on the floor, and some people saw this unfold through the window, Parker is arrested and ends up on death row. Shortly before all this happened, she met scientist researcher Douglas Fowley and criminologist Lionel Atwill, and Fowley fell in love with her. He also moonlights as the state executioner however. Atwill doesn't believe Parker is guilty, and thinks Parker's sister Marcia Mae Jones, whom he caught lying on the night of the murder, holds the key to finding the real killer.The movie is told in flashback by Atwill as he recounts the story to some of his colleagues, using a letter Parker wrote shortly before walking to the chair. The actors do a decent job, altho Fowley is surprisingly stiff here.Director Steve Sekely ('Hollow Triumph') and DoP Gus Peterson (ine one of his last movies, his credits go back to 1914!) knew how to quickly and effectively make movies, and it shows. It is told & shot in the typical fashion employed by the low-budget studios, PRC in this case, where pace and economics mattered more than logic (that is: if you have time to think about a plot hole while watching a movie, the movie needs more trimming). It doesn't have a lot of noir visuals, and the movie works better as a mystery, but it's a decent effort that does tick a few boxes.It's not a movie that really demands multiple viewings, but as a quick time-waster, it holds up decently well. 6/10

Cristi_Ciopron A suspenseful, enjoyable and very melodramatic mystery movie, with Jean Parker, Marcia Mae Jones and Atwill, chilling as usual, and directed by Steve Sekely, peopled also by a few unlikable characters (the dedicated scientist, the fat sergeant), and made in a bombastic style reminiscent of Soviet cinema or silent movies, while Atwill only enhances this atmosphere of mayhem; Atwill didn't seem convinced that his character was not only a good guy, but also a nice one, so that his cordial smiles don't seem very reassuring. As a matter of fact, his undisguised occasional joy is even more creepy than his straight menace from his typecast roles, as it suggests insanity, more than cruelty. Marcia and Atwill give kindred performances, in the same popular expressive vein; Jean was above this kind of powerhouse role, and her acting has some class and even perhaps a resigned charm. And if the governor's sandwiches get sometimes laughed at, it's only because the scene is genuinely good.

zardoz-13 This low-budget but entertaining crime thriller about a dame scheduled to die in the electric chair for a murder that she didn't commit is a fine example of a movie that impugns the death penalty. Mary Kirk Logan (Jean Parker)has been shielding her younger sister Suzy and herself from the truth that her father was a criminal in the pin-ball racket. Nevertheless, one of her father's old accomplices, Willis Millen (Dick Curtis) has come back to blackmail her because he knows that she has some of her dad's dough. Moreover, Millen knows that her stiff, stuck-up, morally superior boss, Gregory (George Irving),will fire her if he catches a whiff of her shady past. Actually, Mary's boss at the bank, who hired her because he needed somebody who he could trust to handle confidential information, played a crucial role in a law and order crusade to put her father behind bars. As it turns out, Mary has been paying a high price to buy the silence of her the silence of her father's former associate. Ironically, the villain who is blackmailing Mary is considered a low-life even by his own kind. Mary has managed to fool Gregory about her checkered past for five years."Lady in the Death House" opens with Mary taking the final 39 steps of her life to the electric chair. She has been convicted of a murder that she didn't commit based on the testimony of two passersby who were staring up at the window in her apartment when the murder occurred. All these two spectators really saw was two dark shadows against a fully lighted window with the shade pulled down. Nevertheless, they swear under oath that they saw Mary kill Millen. It doesn't help matters that they rushed up to Mary's apartment after the murder and found the slain man in the floor with the murder weapon--a statue--nearby his body. Millen uttered Mary's name as his final words and the police detective (Cy Kendall)puts two and two together to convict Mary. Since Millen was trying to blackmail Mary, the detective argues that Mary killed Millen to thwart his scheme. Happily for Mary, she knows a tenacious criminologist Charles Finch (Lionel Atwill) who uses his skills to set her free."Revenge of the Zombies" director Steve Sekely tells the story in flashback for maximum suspense and doesn't have Mary exonerated until the last three minutes.

David Kelsey This tautly constructed little movie should serve as a model for those modern film authors who cannot unfold the simplest story line in less than two hours.The movie opens with Mary Kirk being led from her cell to walk to the death chamber. She leaves a letter for Charles Finch, a psychologist and criminologist. In it she has outlined the events which led to her situation. We then see Finch reading the letter to a small group of reporters, supplementing it with an account of his own involvement in the affair. His first person narrative alternates with flashback depiction of the events. Half way into the movie he has reached the point at which Mary was convicted and sentenced to death. The next 20 minutes cover his subsequent efforts to find the evidence which will clear her. He still has not succeeded by the time we have caught up to the opening of the movie and see Mary finish her walk to the electric chair. The remaining few minutes are a desperate race against the clock played more or less in real time.The movie does not waste an inch of film. Every scene conveys information and advances the action, with smooth and skillful links. Particularly effective is the way in which the character of Mary's younger sister, Suzy, is handled. Her appearances are almost always incidental to the main action, but as the movie progresses it becomes clear that she is somehow central to the solution.The nature of the plot means that the title character plays a passive rather than an active role. Jean Parker is persuasive in the part, wisely forgoing the opportunities for melodramatics. Marcia Mae Jones' porcelain-doll prettiness frequently led to her being cast as a vain and foolish little madam, and her role here as Suzy suits her talents. Lionel Atwill makes a convincing sleuth, neatly conveying a blend of scientific detachment, humanitarian concern, and an occasional twinkle of humour.Anybody who thinks that "first class B movie" is an oxymoron should study this film and learn better.