THE DEFENSE RESTS

 

THE DEFENSE RESTS is a 1934 drama about the law profession produced by Columbia Pictures, starring Jack Holt and Jean Arthur. 

Jack Holt plays Matthew Mitchell, a big-time hot-shot defense attorney who never loses a case. But Mitchell is no Perry Mason--he freely admits that he's unethical and unscrupulous, and he'll use every trick in the book to get his shady clients off. A young lady fresh out of law school named Joan Hayes (Jean Arthur) gets a job in Mitchell's office as a law clerk, and the idealistic woman decides to "reform" the powerful lawyer. Mitchell is coerced by the mob to defend a man accused of kidnapping and murdering a small child, much to Joan's dismay. A tragic encounter with the murdered child's mother finally forces Mitchell to change his ways. 

THE DEFENSE RESTS has a strange premise--it wants the audience to root for the main character's rehabilitation, even though that event would cause him to lose his financial and social standing. The character of Matthew Mitchell should have been played by someone like William Powell or Warren William--actors like those two would have had the charm and personality to make the viewer dislike their actions while still wanting to watch their antics. Jack Holt, with his tight-lipped and brusque manner, doesn't even look comfortable in a courtroom. He comes off as too cold and calculating, even after he has supposedly "turned". 

It's also hard to believe that someone as poised and appealing as Jean Arthur's Joan Hayes would be so taken with Holt. Joan explains in the movie that she has followed all of Matthew Mitchell's cases, and she's dreamed of working with him--yet even when she finds out what he's really like she tries even harder to put him on the straight and narrow (and she wants to marry him to boot). It's to Arthur's credit that she makes the situation work. In all honesty, a movie with Arthur as a big-shot attorney would have been much more entertaining to watch. 

There's plenty of familiar faces for movie geeks to keep track of during THE DEFENSE RESTS, including Donald Meek, Ward Bond, J. Carrol Naish, and Samuel S. Hinds. Sarah Padden gets special mention as the distraught mother of the murdered child (obviously this plot element was based on the Lindbergh kidnapping case). Nat Pendleton plays another of his many "dumb palooka" roles. 

The film has to-the-point direction by Lambert Hillyer, best known for later helming DRACULA'S DAUGHTER and THE INVISIBLE RAY. (Some sources say that Hillyer was born in my hometown of South Bend, Indiana, but other sources say that he was born in Tyner, a small town in the next county.) Jo Swerling is credited with the screenplay, which takes care of all of Mitchell's problems too neatly (I would have liked to have seen him suffer a bit because of his shenanigans). 

It's fitting that the above ad gives Jean Arthur top billing--she's the main reason to view this film.