Journal of a Crime

"Moliet" (Adolphe Menjou) is under pressure from his mistress "Odette" (Claire Dodd) to end his marriage and come live with her. He is reluctant, but his hand is forced when his wife (Ruth Chatterton) overhears a bit of conversation that causes her to preempt things by shooting her rival - conveniently, as it happens, as hoodlum "Costelli" is nearby, apprehended and convicted of the crime. Thing is, "Moliet" knows who really killed his lover and she knows he knows, so their home life becomes something quite attritional with "Francoise" determined to keep her man at all costs and he equally determined, though rather benignly, that she will come to terms with the ramifications of her actions and, he hopes, do the right thing. Will she, though? The film here isn't really anything more than a standard revenge drama, but Chatterton's role offers her a chance to play the increasingly troubled character with some deft. Her gradual realisation of the impact of her actions - on her, her husband and even on the man who will take the rap, gradually makes her ill and lifeless and she performs this latter part of the role so as to encourage us to feel almost sympathetic for her. Menjou does fine as a conduit for his co-star to shine here and though the denouement is a bit of a let down, it's still worth a watch to remember that Ruth Chatterton's move into sound pictures was a great deal smoother than many.

Journal Of A Crime finds Ruth Chatterton and Adolphe Menjou at the end of their marriage. The film opens with Chatterton out spying on Menjou and his new mistress Claire Dodd. She hears Dodd finally order Menjou to make a choice and he reluctantly does because I suspect the dog wants to keep things as they are and have it both ways.

When he comes home Menjou does finally tell Chatterton it's over, but that drives her to a homicidal rage. She does shoot Dodd, but has a stroke of luck in that Noel Madison, a bank robber who had shot and killed a teller during a robbery took refuge in the same theater location and gets arrested. She gets away with it except that Menjou finds evidence to arrest his wife. He hides it, preferring to let Chatterton work it out for herself, one way or another.

The title comes from the fact that Chatterton as a kind of self therapy starts keeping a journal of her conscience. She's not a hardened criminal, just a woman who was done wrong. The film is totally dominated by her performance.

Though Journal Of A Crime is excessively melodramatic, it does give Ruth Chatterton a really good role where her facial expressions like in a silent film contain more than pages of dialog. In the end fate has an interesting ending for her and Menjou for that matter.

A remake of a French film made the previous year, Raymond Rouleau's 'Une Vie Perdue' (1933), Ruth Chatterton's final film under her Warner Bros. contract begins like an intense marital drama; although the title has already lead the viewer to anticipate a 'crime passionnel' and start wondering who's going to get shot. Surely not husband Adolphe Menjou? He's a big star and has second billing. Maybe third billed Claire Dodd, cast to type as the charmless Other Woman nagging Menjou to get a divorce...

• BANG! -

Then the crime takes place, and by amazing coincidence a bank robber just happens to be hanging around backstage to take the fall for the real culprit. The coincidences now start piling on faster and faster, crammed into an incredible 64 minutes whose tortuous twists and turns are probably the result of the writing being on the wall about the new Production Code just months away. The code wasn't in force yet, so both adultery and murder go unpunished; but the narrative that follows twists itself into greater and greater contortions in seeming anticipation of Joseph Breen's coming blue pencil.

When one says the name Ruth Chatterton, one is evoking a very early period in films. Chatterton was a noted stage actress and she demonstrated a wonderful flair in films. She was kind of the Kay Francis of the very early '30s, though Francis was working by then. Chatterton had about 12 years on her so was on her way out.

In this film, she's married to Adolph Menjou. Menjou is in love with the ingénue lead in his play. She's playing for keeps and warns her lover if he doesn't get a divorce, they're through. Chatterton overhears this and kills her during a rehearsal. Her husband knows about it, but another man, a bank robber, is arrested. She refuses to go to the police.

It's actually a psychological drama, with Menjou predicting she will destroy herself because of guilt. She does start to sink downhill.

Some say this was a weak ending, and I suppose it was, but it is an interesting one, if contrived. I kind of liked it.

I think it's worth seeing some of these very early stars, and I especially enjoy Ruth Chatterton's performances.

Journal of a Crime (1934)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Decent melodrama from Warner has Ruth Chatterton playing a wife who finds out that her husband (Adolphe Menjou) is in love with another woman (Claire Dodd). Fearing that she's going to lose him forever, the wife shoots the lover and gets away with it but when the husband finds out he decides not to tell anyone because he feels the best justice is for his wife to slowly crack under the guilt. This pre-Code isn't the greatest film ever made and there are quite a few problems with the story but the performance of Chatterton makes it worth sitting through if you enjoy this period of Hollywood. I think the best thing going for the film is the performance of Chatterton who is quite believable as the grieving wife. The screenplay goes all over the place with her character so Chatterton has to go through a wide range of emotions. She nails everyone of them and especially the scenes early on when she learns that her husband no longer loves her and she does what she can to try and save her marriage. This good sequence is followed by her slowly turning to rage when she realizes that it really doesn't matter what she does as the husband has his heart made up. Chatterton has always been an underrated actress and her performance here proves she could handle just about anything. Menjou is always good and that continues here as he could play this type of role in his sleep. I especially loved the way he remains calm, cool and collective while trying to force the guilt trip on the wife. Dodd doesn't appear in the film for too long but she's good while there. The screenplay is the main villain here because it's never quite clear where the picture wants to go and while I won't ruin the ending I will say it's incredibly stupid as it really doesn't close anything up. Yes, it closes the "past" up but everything with the husband and his feelings are pretty much untouched. At just 64-minutes the film moves well enough and is okay for a one-time viewing.