The Women in His Life

Kent "Barry" Barringer (Otto Kruger) is a hard cynical lawyer. He gets clients acquitted he knows are guilty using cute "tricks" such as having the defendant's double sit in court being identified by witness after witness only to introduce the real defendant sitting out in the crowd, thus causing reasonable doubt.

Barringer has women betting a night with their bodies over a pinball game. He distrusts even "the women in his life" as cheating chiselers. You see, his wife ran out on him ten years before and something inside him died at the time, so he's spent his time becoming the world's best criminal attorney and "hate bedding" women ever since.

Then one day an innocent appears at his office door - Her father is accused of killing her stepmother. When Barringer sees the dead woman's photo, he realizes that she is the wife who left him ten years ago. He breaks down - as long as there was life there was hope, but now she's dead. She'll never come back. Barringer abandons his practice and his clients and goes on a bender. But what of the girl's father and his trial? Watch and find out.

This is one of my favorite legal precodes. It has everything and its pacing and ability to seamlessly transition from one genre to another is excellent. At first, the film is a courtroom drama, by the end it is a gangster tale. It really has no big stars in it, and Otto Kruger is in rare form in a rare leading role.

Though made by MGM, it really doesn't seem like a film of the era or one that the studio cared very much about, and as a result of MGM's neglect it turned out to be something special. The best way I could describe it is as though MGM and WB had a child. And that child - this film - has the MGM class and WB's sass. I'd highly recommend it.

With Una Merkel as Barringer's unflappable secretary, Ben Lyon as Barringer's straight arrow junior partner, Isabel Jewell as the woman who loves Barringer but might as well be talking to a rock when it comes time to talk of love, and Roscoe Karns as the same kind of wise-cracking assistant he played in 20th Century the following year.

This movie would have been mediocre at best had it not been for Otto Kruger's performance. His acting in this movie is so natural, so unlike most precode acting where the acting is over dramatic. I honestly kept wTching just for him, he totally drew me in.

Otto Kruger stars as a gifted criminal defense lawyer, Kent Barringer, in this well directed and fast paced crime drama. Barringer is a troubled, cynical man, who's wife left him ten years before for another man. He must now face his past when he is shocked to discover that his ex-wife was the victim of the man that he's defending for murder. This is a well plotted little budget film with an excellent cast, with MGM's usual first-rate production values. Staring along with Kruger, are old pro's like Una Merkel, Roscoe Karns and surprisingly Isabel Jewell, usually typecast as a gum chewing bimbo -- here getting to play a good girl with brains.

Not a great movie by any means. However, you will see Otto Kruger like you've never seem him before. His performance is outstanding, ond I had never been a fan of his ever, until now. See it just for him.

Kent Barringer (Otto Kruger) is a self-assured cynical womanizing successful defense lawyer. He gets another guilty man off. He uses every trick to win his cases. He keeps a picture of an old flame to remind him that love is an illusion. He gets a case defending a supposed innocent murderer. He is shocked to find the victim to be his pictured ex.

This is a pre-Code drama. I really like the premise and the start. I would like a more dashing and younger lead. Otherwise, Otto Kruger is pretty good. I don't buy the doppelganger defense. Everybody has a doppelganger. Kent didn't actually prove anything. As for the big case, I thought he would do more investigating after the loss. The second half is not as compelling.