THIS COMMENT CONTAINS SPOILERS. This is a much worse movie than at first appears. Neither the trial nor the original investigation which consists of nothing more than arresting Arthur Groome who had obligingly left his name with the victim's landlady makes any sense. Groome has an iron-clad alibi for the time of the murder. He was eating in a restaurant where he is a regular who has been meeting Mary and perhaps other showgirls and must be known. While he is eating, another guest whom Groome later remembers, but cannot place, addresses him by name. This alibi witness never comes forward for reasons of his own (that his utterly unrelated and minor misconduct might be exposed), but he does a will-he-or-won't-he dance for a while. Meanwhile Groome has a second alibi witness of which the prosecution is obviously aware, the bartender at Joe's Place, the restaurant. Groome argues with that bartender at 10:20 PM on the clock -- the murder is set at 10:00 PM -- before he leaves after eating about whether the clock is 10 minutes or 20 minutes fast. This argument at 10:00 or 10:10 PM puts him there at the time of the murder and settles the question of his innocence. The prosecutor suggests that the reason Groome asks about the clock is to establish an alibi, but his reason makes no difference since he was obviously there (Groome explains that his concern was how late for their date Mary, who is dead, was). Thus the prosecutor does not dispute the alibi, but suggests that his having an alibi proves his guilt.
The serial killer who has dispatched poor Mary at 10:00 PM is played by Arthur Dawson who will later die as would-be-murderer Swann at the hands of Grace Kelly in the masterpiece Dial M for Murder. He eventually provides a happy ending by confessing in a letter to the police using language he has used in front of the police in his faithful visits to the courtroom. He also visits poor Mrs Groome at home where he harasses her, but does not raise her suspicions.
The police are unable to tell that the knife Groome lent to Mary that is found at the scene is not the murder weapon. Even in 1948 whether a knife had been handled or bloodied could be determined. Here there is nothing more than Groome's arrival after the murder to try to find out why Mary did not arrive at Joe's Place as planned to associate him with the murder. Since Groome runs away from the scene to avoid having his wife discover his dalliance, reporting the murder is left to someone else who is never identified.
The trial appears to go from the testimony of the landlady (who also could have been an alibi witness for Groome since she knew what time he arrived), the prosecution's star witness, directly to Groome, the defendant. How the prosecution knows about the discussion of the time at Joe's Place while the murder was being committed is not revealed, but the sequence of witnesses implies that the alibi witness bartender was not called at all. Of course this is absurd.
There is something remarkable about Harrison and Palmer making a movie about his infidelity not very long after his infamous infidelity with another actress had been revealed. I suppose the producers believed that curiosity about how Palmer would play the forgiving wife allowed a certain carelessness with the movie itself.
The serial killer who has dispatched poor Mary at 10:00 PM is played by Arthur Dawson who will later die as would-be-murderer Swann at the hands of Grace Kelly in the masterpiece Dial M for Murder. He eventually provides a happy ending by confessing in a letter to the police using language he has used in front of the police in his faithful visits to the courtroom. He also visits poor Mrs Groome at home where he harasses her, but does not raise her suspicions.
The police are unable to tell that the knife Groome lent to Mary that is found at the scene is not the murder weapon. Even in 1948 whether a knife had been handled or bloodied could be determined. Here there is nothing more than Groome's arrival after the murder to try to find out why Mary did not arrive at Joe's Place as planned to associate him with the murder. Since Groome runs away from the scene to avoid having his wife discover his dalliance, reporting the murder is left to someone else who is never identified.
The trial appears to go from the testimony of the landlady (who also could have been an alibi witness for Groome since she knew what time he arrived), the prosecution's star witness, directly to Groome, the defendant. How the prosecution knows about the discussion of the time at Joe's Place while the murder was being committed is not revealed, but the sequence of witnesses implies that the alibi witness bartender was not called at all. Of course this is absurd.
There is something remarkable about Harrison and Palmer making a movie about his infidelity not very long after his infamous infidelity with another actress had been revealed. I suppose the producers believed that curiosity about how Palmer would play the forgiving wife allowed a certain carelessness with the movie itself.