This provides a perfect role for John Barrymore allowing him to over-act to his heart's content with total justification and indeed believability since he's playing a one of those very theatrical lawyers who only exist in the movies. His job is to perform, his stage is the courthouse and his audience is the jury, and they love him. Behind all the bluster and bravado however lies a man discontent with how his life has turned out so he's slowly drowning himself from the inside in whiskey. As with a lot of John Barrymore's roles, the role reflects the reality of his own life which by this stage had begun its alcohol fuelled trajectory to its untimely crash landing.
Although it's fun to see the master at work, it's not a gripping film. The rest of the cast are instantly forgettable and the plot, which could have been written up over drinks in the bar on the way to the studio, is so predictable and routine you could set your watch by it - the plot however is not what the film is. It's a character study of a complicated man and how he has to change to cope with his complicated life. A couple of years later he made another very similar film (directed by William Wyler) in which he again played a lawyer, again having to change his ways: COUNCILLOR AT LAW. That motion picture is nothing too special and from some accounts because Mr B was so drunk at times, he required propping up but he is spectacularly good in that one and the story is much more interesting than in this.
Although it's fun to see the master at work, it's not a gripping film. The rest of the cast are instantly forgettable and the plot, which could have been written up over drinks in the bar on the way to the studio, is so predictable and routine you could set your watch by it - the plot however is not what the film is. It's a character study of a complicated man and how he has to change to cope with his complicated life. A couple of years later he made another very similar film (directed by William Wyler) in which he again played a lawyer, again having to change his ways: COUNCILLOR AT LAW. That motion picture is nothing too special and from some accounts because Mr B was so drunk at times, he required propping up but he is spectacularly good in that one and the story is much more interesting than in this.