Within the Law (1923) User Reviews

Frame Up for Norma Talmadge

[wes-connors · 5/10 · 2 November 2011]

After spending three years in prison for a crime she didn't commit, shop-girl Norma Talmadge (as Mary Turner) finds employment prospects grim. She attempts suicide, but Ms. Talmadge is saved by shady Lew Cody (as Joe Garson). Then, she joins forces with gum-chewing Eileen Percy (as Aggie Lynch). The two women become successful pseudo-socialites through frivolous lawsuits. They are underhanded, but Talmadge likes to operate "Within the Law". Seeking revenge against the former boss who falsely accused her, Talmadge begins to woo his son, Jack Mulhall (as Richard Gilder), but love gets in the way...

This silent melodrama, imaginatively re-titled "Paid" (1930) for Joan Crawford, finds Talmadge and everyone taking it over the top for director Frank Lloyd. Acting most like it's a screen test, Talmadge nevertheless shines during the scene where her past is revealed to Gilder and Gilder. Then being promoted as an ingénue, future agent Helen Ferguson has a good role as Talmadge's emotional co-worker. A socially relevant point is made, early on, when another woman is caught shoplifting at Gilder's Emporium; because she's a banker's wife, instructions are made to apologize to the wealthy kleptomaniac for the imposition.

***** Within the Law (4/29/23) Frank Lloyd ~ Norma Talmadge, Jack Mulhall, Eileen Percy, Lew Cody

Interesting Drama that doesn't quite reach the heights

[lyrast · 7/10 · 16 April 2010]

"Within the Law" {1923} is the second feature in the Kino Norma Talmadge collection and it shows a very different type of character acting from the star than we see in the other film, "Kiki". Norma really does shine in this film. Her portrayals take us through a character development in Mary Turner ranging from the vulnerable and innocent shop girl through the much tougher prisoner, the brazen, calculating, on-the-make vamp, the fierce woman betrayed, the passionate avenging angel and finally the wife who finds how much she loves her husband. The fact that she makes Mary Turner a completely believable character is a tribute to her remarkable flexibility.

The film itself is a melodrama with a rather disturbing social theme which explores the inequalities and corruptions that are not simply evil in themselves but have additional evil consequences on others. it is the working out of the theme of amoral--even immoral-- behaviour "within the law" which lifts this film out of the ordinary and saves it from being a contrived melodrama.

Three scenes really emphasize this central moral irony. First, at the beginning Edward Gilder {Joseph Kilgour} in effect, sends Mary to prison even though Judge and Jury recommend mercy. He does this to assert the value of property rights. Thus he destroys the innocent Mary Turner and transforms her into the woman obsessed with revenge and does so "within the law".

She, of course, begins to use the law to take her revenge. And a climactic and unforgettable moment comes about an hour into the film. Mary confronts Edward and asserts that her marriage to his son, Richard, {Jack Mulhall} was an act of revenge. She has lost her good name and been given a number in prison. Now, she says to Edward, "I have your name!" And she has done so "within the law".

Perhaps the most disturbing example comes at the end. The Inspector {DeWitt Jennings} uses the contemptible and slimy English Eddie {Ward Crane} to trick Mary's friend Joe Garson {Lew Cody} into a robbery which is also intended to implicate the completely innocent Mary and send her to prison a second time. In fact, the constant use of various forms of entrapment by the inspector leave a bad taste in the mouth. As a result the rather jocular ending seems contrived.

The film is, perhaps, overlong despite the clever plot twists and the magnificent acting of Norma Talmadge. I feel that if Cecil B. DeMille had directed this film instead of Frank Lloyd, we might have had a very great masterpiece. Instead, we are left with an interesting film which falls just short of greatness despite having a very great star in top form.

The print was generally excellent in quality and the piano soundtrack was brilliantly apropos.

A rare surviving film of Norma Talmadge's

[AlsExGal · 7/10 · 4 October 2020]

Norma Talmadge was one of the two famous Talmadge sisters of the silent cinema. Norma generally starred in dramas, Constance starred in comedies. Norma did a couple of talking films, but they did not register well with audiences. There have been many legends as to why this is so, including some that say that Norma's voice sounded like Lena Lamont's in Singin in the Rain. This is not true, and if you view the surviving "New York Nights" from 1929 you'll see that Norma has a very pleasant speaking voice and had the makings of a pretty good sound era actress. At any rate, the Talmadges were very rich thanks to sound real estate investments, and Norma chose to simply retire after a couple of film failures. She wasn't interested at all in maintaining her silent film legacy, and so many of her films are lost today. I would never have heard of her and gotten curious had I not been reading Buster Keaton's biography and stumbled across her name - Buster was married to Natalie, the non-acting sister in the family.

Within the Law (1923) is the more dramatic side of Norma. The early sound film "Paid" starring Joan Crawford was a remake of this film, and then there was a production code era film, also called "Within The Law" (1939) that was another remake. Norma plays a girl unjustly imprisoned for shoplifting and learns how to steal using the law itself while imprisoned. Specifically she uses a "breach of promise" scam to extort money from men. Years ago, if a man proposed marriage and then backed out, it was called breach of promise, and there were extreme civil consequences to be paid, particularly if the man was well off. Specifically, Norma's character sets her sights on the son of the man that sent her to jail unjustly. Directed by Frank Lloyd.

Hell Hath No Fury Like Norma Talmadge

[drednm · 14 March 2010]

Norma plays a little shop girl wrongly convicted of stealing from the store where she works. She vows revenge on the heartless owner. After getting out of prison she embarks on a career as a woman who sues a series of old men for breach of promise, which is "within the law." But when she falls for the old store owner's son (Jack Mulhall), things go wrong, especially when her colleagues (Lew Cody, Eileen Percy) get sucked into a burglary scheme the cops have set up.

Not the greatest drama (although this was remade as PAID in 1930 for Joan Crawford and again in 1939 for Ruth Hussey under the original title), but Talmadge is terrific and looks great in the stylish clothing (she also produced the film thru Norma Talmadge Pictures for First National). The film is smartly directed by Frank Lloyd.

Print is excellent except for a very few moments of deterioration on the edges.

Norma makes them pay-- and pay-- and pay

[MissSimonetta · 6/10 · 27 May 2022]

WITHIN THE LAW might be better known for one piece of production trivia than as a film proper. Margaret Leahy, a British beauty contest winner promised a chance at a movie career, was originally supposed to play Norma Talmadge's gum-chewing partner in crime Aggie, only for director Frank Lloyd to discover their prize winner couldn't act her way out of a paper bag. She was foisted onto Talmadge's brother-in-law Buster Keaton, who was making his first feature film THREE AGES. Leahy appeared in that film to wooden but overall harmless effect then dropped out of movies altogether. Working as an interior designer, she came to hate Hollywood and sadly ended her own life over forty years after her first and only movie's debut.

That's a much more interesting story than anything in WITHIN THE LAW, a routine melodrama of the early 1920s with nothing much to recommend it. The bare bones of the plot is promising-- an innocent shopgirl is framed for theft and ends up in jail for three years due to the insistence of her employer, hoping to make an example for any potential wayward employees. Vowing revenge, the shopgirl becomes a con artist when she gets out of prison. Blackmailing wealthy men, she hopes to ensnare her employer's guileless son-- only she falls in love with the dope. What's a girl to do?

Suffer nobly is the answer. And Talmadge certainly knew how to suffer with the best of them, especially in those wonderful Roaring Twenties fashions. Unfortunately, her performance here feels less like an evocation of a living, breathing, thinking character and more like a series of dramatic poses. The central love story is also underdeveloped, making the heroine's turn from vengeance to love hard to swallow or get invested in. As a result, the only one who leaves any impression is Eileen Percy as Aggie, who had me cracking up a lot ("You make love just like the sheik!" she coos to an octogenarian suitor). Otherwise, WITHIN THE LAW is pretty disposable stuff.

How Can You Believe Anything Bad About Norma Talmadge?

[boblipton · 6/10 · 4 November 2023]

Norma Talmadge is a shop girl at Joseph Kilgour's department store. She is convicted of stealing when merchandise is found in her locker, even though she swears she didn't do it. At Kilgour's insistence, she is sentenced to three years in prison. She sees him as she is being sent away and tells him that if he wants to stop employees stealing, pay them a decent wage; he pays no attention because he is distracted by dealing with the wife of a banker who has been caught shoplifting, and who demands an apology. Miss Talmadge swears vengeance.

After serving her time, Miss Talmadge can't find a job, and tries to kill herself. She is rescued by Lew Cody, a friend of Eileen Percy, whom Miss Talmadge got along with in prison. They go into the Broken Hearts racket: Miss Percy fascinates decrepit Tom Ricketts in writing her compromising letter, which are returned when their lawyer gets paid for them: strictly, although barely legal. In the meantime, Miss Talmadge meets Kilgour's son, Jack Mulhall, and he falls in love with her. Her past is revealed by his father just after they have wed.

There are some serious undertones to this movie, after how the rich get justice and the poor get the night stock of the law; this is carried through to the very end. Even though Miss Talmadge may be redeemed, there's no change in that basic problem.

In the meantime, this is a handsome little modern -- for 1923 -- drama, with Miss Percy stealing the show every chance she gets. Miss Talmadge gets to suffer, which must please her fans, and all the young men adore her. It's handsomely shot by cameramen Norbert Brodine and Tony Gaudio, and Frank Lloyd doe a nice job of directing all on hand. With Helen Ferguson, Ward Crane, DeWitt Jennings, and Lionel Belmore.

It's alright. It could have been something special, though.

[I_Ailurophile · 6/10 · 2 April 2023]

It's hard not to feel like this 1923 film is extra depressing to watch in 2023 for all the ways in which nothing has changed in 100 years - nothing, perhaps, save for that the power of the wealthy, and the destitution of those who work, have only grown in that time. The title plays with ideas that are painfully familiar to anyone with the capability of fundamental comprehension and critical thinking: capitalist greed and hypocrisy, wage theft, insufficient compensation, and employers reaping all the benefits of their business while giving nothing to their employees; the abject cruelty, inhumanity, and untrustworthy, underhanded tactics of the so-called "criminal justice system," its subservience to those of wealth and power, the way it poisons all that it touches even fleetingly, and the societal structure that means a one bad break, an arbitrary decision by a third party, or such a decision informed by corruption, can bring a person to ruin. Such are the foundations of the plot of 'Within the law,' and one can only trust that the coming vengeance of protagonist Mary Turner will be all the sweeter for how justice has been denied to countless many others.

Well, that last bit is sort of true. But only sort of.

As one quite expects of the silent era in particular, the production design and art direction are lovely and easy on the eyes, and this goes for the costume design, too. Even the intertitles are given to some nice illustrations and flourishes. The cast give strong performances, most notably star Norma Talmadge, bringing their parts and the story to life quite ably. Yes, it's true to some extent that the acting is marked by a trait common to the timeframe, the exaggerated expressions and body language that are ported from the stage and employed to compensate for lack of sound and verbal dialogue. Even at that, however, I think the portrayals are pretty swell more than not, and only occasionally is the artifice more plainly apparent. A bit more concerning is the writing. At large prolific screenwriter Frances Marion's adaptation of Bayard Veiller's play is rather splendid. Some sharp wit rears its head every now and again, and the scene writing is fairly solid in shaping the whole. The narrative is engaging and compelling more than not.

On the other hand, the plot development seems to lag at a few points; I don't think this feature necessarily makes the most judicious use of all its time. It's worth mentioning, too, that supporting character Aggie is given a line that's repeated several times, and with less cleverness than I think was supposed by the creatives. The ending is also curt to the point of being off-putting. Above all, despite the noted core ideas that underlie the tale, it feels to me as though Veiller's play - and subsequently its cinematic adaptation - are undercut by (I assume) contemporary social standards. Those contemporary social standards insist that The Law as an entity is shown to be of worth even when it very specifically is not, and moreover that, even though Mary Turner (and to an extent even her compatriots) are in the right, her schemes cannot be allowed to produce flawless success and happiness as they twist the same laws that the wealthy and powerful abuse without any accountability. All this is obvious and present in the story as it is written, and the entirety is weakened for seeming to serve third party interests instead of the narrative that otherwise practically assembles itself. Why, emphasizing the point, the play (stage and screen) concretely swerves away from the very plainspoken notions that were accentuated in the first place as major plot points, and I can only surmise that Veiller was unwilling to speak truth to power.

With all this said, I don't think 'Within the law' is bad.' I did enjoy watching it, and I think the tale that we get is worthwhile. It's not as worthwhile as the one we could have gotten though, which could have been readily formed from the exact same building blocks of which this is made, and for which the playwright himself sketched the blueprints. Or maybe I'm just extra jaded and cynical. Either way, it is what it is, and what this movie is is modestly enjoyable and duly well made. Some of the greatest films ever made hail from the silent era; this isn't one of them. It's still an alright watch if you happen to come across it, though just keep your expectations in check.

Good performance by Talmadge

[xan-the-crawford-fan · 7/10 · 23 September 2021]

Shopgirl Mary Turner (Norma Talmadge) is sent to prison for three years for a crime she didn't commit- stealing from her workplace. She vows to get back at her boss for everything he owes her for doing her wrong, and her time in prison isn't exactly deserved.

She makes a friend in prison named Aggie (), and when they get out, Mary vows to go straight instead of being wrapped up in a life of crime like Aggie plans to do, but when she can't get any jobs due to having done time in prison, she decides to commit suicide by jumping into a lake. She is saved, however, by a conman named Joe Garson (), and relents to a life of crime. She gets back at her boss, little by little, raking in the money...within the law. Another scheme of hers is to take up with the boss's son (), but when he proposes, love gets in the way of revenge. A big heist turns to an attempted frame-up, a man is killed, and Mary is accused of murder.

I would have given this film a higher rating, seeing as I liked the story and the acting was good (particularly by Talmadge), but the story just kept plodding on and on. Too much of the story was devoted to the courtship of Mary and the boss's son, too much time was devoted to the attempted heist, but contrary to the remake Paid (1930), the scenes in the police station don't seem to go on long enough. The editing is pretty bad, odd fadeouts after the intertitles but rather sloppy editing from scene to scene where the film appears to have been spliced right on top of each other.

As I mentioned above, Norma Talmadge gave a very good performance as Mary Turner, bar the fact that her face seemed to have been stuck in the same wronged expression for most of the film. That's a nitpicky detail, and if there had been Oscars in 1923, Talmadge would have won. As with a lot of her contemporaries, her filmography isn't very vast, because a lot of her silents have been lost, but the ones that have survived aren't as good as this one.

The actor who played the son of Mary's boss was pretty boring and I don't see why Mary would have fallen for him in the first place, but love is blind, I guess. Provided some good comic relief as Aggie ("Oh, I'm so fwightened!" is a phrase she likes to repeat).

Overall, recommended, but be aware that it really does overstay its welcome. A cut of twenty minutes wouldn't have impaired the story any.

Best of the silent versions

[bbmtwist · 10/10 · 21 December 2016]

There seem to have been five versions of this excellent play, three silent and two sound. This is the best of the silents. PAID is the best of the sound versions and the best of all five.

A superbly written play, focusing on the male-dominated social world at the expense of the working girl. Mary Turner, falsely accused of theft, comes out of prison, bent on revenge, on men in general. but in particular on her former employer who sent her up.

One of Talmadge's finest performances, this is superbly directed by Frank Lloyd, and with excellent performances from all in the cast. Hard to believe this is 1923, it has the sophistication of a film directed in 1926 or 1927 on the verge of sound. Available on DVD with a print partially restored from nitrate archive bits and commercially released 16 mm, it is still a film to be reckoned with.

Were there Oscars then, this would have rated nominations for: Film, Direction, Screenplay Adaptation, Actress - Talmadge. One of the great, if not the greatest, dramatic actresses of the silent screen, Talmadge is all but forgotten. This is one of her best performances - As Desmond put it "They had faces then," and so right - you can read it all in Talmadge's face and body movements, all natural, nothing exaggerated or over-reached.

A very thoughtful treatise on the rights of women in a male-dominated and prejudiced society! One of the great silent films.