Counsellor at Law (1933)
Starring: John Barrymore, Bebe Daniels, Onslow Stevens, Isabel Jewell, Melvyn Douglas, Doris Kenyon, Thelma Todd, John Hammond Dailey and Vincent Sherman
Director: William Wyler
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars
George Simon (Barrymore) is a workaholic and a highly successful attorney who clawed his way up from the gutter to an office high atop New York City in the Empire State Building. Over the space of a few days, he finds his professional and personal life crumbling to ruins.
"Councellor at Law" is a swift moving drama whose origins as a stage play are clearly evident throughout its run-time. While that's usually a negative in these reviews, this film is the exception that proves the rule. All the film's action takes place within the high-cielinged, art-deco rooms that make up the Law Office of Simon & Tedesco, so the limited locations and characters moving about as if they're following blocking on a stage and arriving stage left and existing stage right isn't a distraction. It also helps that the entire cast is made up of actors who are film veterans--some of whom got their start as child actors during the silent film days, like Bebe Daniels--and therefore are all giving cinematic-oriented performances rather than being stagey and projecting and emoting so the audience in the back rows can pick up on what's going on.
John Barrymore and Bebe Daniels, the film's stars, give particularly impressive performances. They both give perfect examples of what "show, don't tell" means. Daniels' character never expresses the deep love and respect she has for her boss, Simon, nor how much it pains her to see how blind he is to the disrespect and disregard he gets from the blue-blood wife (Doris Kenyon) he loves above everything else. Bebe had, literally, grown up on movie stages and at this point had more than 20 years of film acting behind her--and it shows. Similarly, Barrymore's best moments in the film come in near-wordless scenes, and the moments in the picture when he lost all hope and is contemplating suicide are some of the most impactful bits of filmmaking I've come across. (Barrymore's acting is top-notch, but he is ably supported by a director and technical crew who understood how to take full advantage of the black and media they were working in.)
While Barrymore and Daniels shine the brightest here, the supporting cast is also spectacular. Among the most remarkable performances are Thelma Todd in a small, but important role, as one of George Simon's shady clients with a case against an even shadier person who as wronged them; Doris Kenyon as Simon's snobbish wife whose actions demonstrates that he only has value to her so long as she can exploit his love for her and desire for acceptance in her social circles, with Melvyn Douglas taking a turn as a blue-blood leech with with lecherous designs on the wife underscoring this point; and Onslow Stevens and Isabel Jewell, as Simon's law partner and the office receptionist/switchboard operator respectively, providing office and period flavor for the story.
All in all, this film is an example of all the good things works from this period has to offer. It's got cool art-deco sets (since it's set during the 1920s, probably right around the time the stock market is getting ready to crash); a flawed hero who is obviously the embodiment of the film's major social and political messages but who is the creation of writers who have enough respect for the audiences intelligence that he isn't also a funnel-shaped mouthpiece for those messages; and snappy dialogue that moves scenes from lighthearted to dramatic with blinding speed.
I only have one real complaint about this film, and it relates to an otherwise excellent sub-thread about office romances/sexual harassment that runs through the film. While one of the clerks is constantly and crudely hitting on the receptionist, a young lawyer in the firm is just as constantly and politely asking Bebe Daniels' character on dates. She constantly rebuffs him with escalating hostility, because she is increasingly distraught over how everything is falling apart for George Simon, as well as Simon's obliviousness to how he is being badly used by people he thinks are on his side. Ultimately, the young lawyer has had enough of her coldness, stops pursuing her, but he hands her a letter of some sort during their last exchange. We never find out what's in that letter, and I really wanted to know what that was because that subplot (out of the many in the film) remains unresolved at the end.
"Councellor at Law" is an undeservedly obscure film. If you appreciate early talkies, or have been impressed with John Barrymore and Bebe Daniels in other roles, you need to see it.
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