Circumstantial Evidence (1945) User Reviews

Dead serious, but like a `very special' episode of a sit-com

[bmacv · 4/10 · 28 July 2003]

This odd little movie opens with a lofty sense of purpose, dedicating itself to `the need of arousing every man and every woman to the dangers that lie in circumstantial evidence.' What ensues resembles a `very special' episode of a sit-com.

Single dad Michael O'Shea sends off for a set of Davy Crockett woodsman's tools for his son Billy Cummings (who even looks like The Beaver). Boys being boys, the kid starts busting up wood crates behind the shop of a neighborhood baker, who slaps him and confiscates the offending hatchet. Enraged, O'Shea goes off to retrieve it. In the struggle, the baker winds up on the floor, with a gash in his forehead, dead. Witnesses swear they saw O'Shea lower the fatal boom. Next thing, O'Shea's on death row.

Avuncular postman Lloyd Nolan, who played no small part in all that went before, takes Cummings under his wing. With Nolan's help, and that of his friends in an athletic club, Cummings stages a charade that convinces even the governor that his dad deserves a new trial. O'Shea, meanwhile, convinced that his situation is hopeless, decides to break out of prison....

It's hard to know for whom this programmer was made - the Saturday matinee peanut-gallery crowd? Despite a thick roster of B-movie stalwarts (Ray Teal, Reed Hadley, John Eldredge, John Hamilton), it's simplistic and implausible throughout. Only in its last moments does it rally, displaying any tension and visual style. One can't help wonder, with all that had just happened in Europe and the Pacific, what was the miscarriage of justice that precipitated this call to arms against circumstantial evidence?

Weird B movie about a meddling mailman

[utgard14 · 5/10 · 23 September 2019]

Odd B picture about a mailman (Lloyd Nolan) who sets out to prove a man (Michael O'Shea) is innocent of murder. What makes this one odd is, for starters, the mailman's relationship with young boys is definitely something of its era. It's all harmless enough in the context of the film's story but it's hard to see it flying today. The guy and his wife don't have any kids so he fills that void by being an uncle figure to the local boys, including the son of the guy who is accused of murder. He comes off as a little pushy and even creepy to me. The weirdest part is that he is largely responsible for getting the guy in trouble in the first place. On top of that he seems anxious to step in and replace the dad in the kid's life. It's all very strange considering he's not the villain here and his actions aren't supposed to be suspicious to the audience. Worth a look for the weird factor but as a movie it's basically a passable time-killer at best.

He Didn't Do It With His Little Hatchet

[boblipton · 4/10 · 22 March 2022]

When his son has his new hatchet seized by a mean shopkeeper, Michael O'Shea goes to wrangle it out, and gets into a fight. While they are tussling over the hatchet, the witnesses see the man go down, and testify in court that O'Shea killed the man. O'Shea winds up on Death Row, while best friend Lloyd Nolan tries to take care of the boy.

It's a very late Fox B, and while the people in front of and behind the camera do their best, it all comes off as mechanical. On top of that, it's a misleading title; as any trial lawyer will tell you, witnesses are very unreliable in what they report, and easily manipulable. Despite attempts to provide some tension, it's rather flat.

"Just because I'm going to work with you doesn't mean I have to like you!"

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 8 January 2020]

So says Billy Cummings, the son of convicted killer Michael O'Shea to friendly neighborhood postman Lloyd Nolan. O'Shea is on death row for the killing of a neighborhood shopkeeper and three witnesses helped turn the case from manslaughter to first degree murder. Cummings gets into trouble for trying to convince each of the witnesses to change their testimony, but as seen from the back, even the audience is certain that O'Shea hit Ben Welden with Cummings' own hatchet. Is it proper evidence or circumstantial, and can Cummings and Nolan find proof before O'Shea gets zapped?

O'Shea doesn't exactly get sympathy with his violent temperament even if he is a protective father. Nolan is the town do-gooder, always incerting himself into his neighbor's lives, big hearted if interfering. The script is well meaning but misguided, and certainly there could have been a better, more realistic story than the one forced on the audience. Had the angle of the struggle between O'Shea and Welden been clear, there would have been doubt to O'Shea's guilt. This is obviously flawed in many ways which diminishes the impact of the story as a whole. A prison escape attempt involving O'Shea at the end just makes this become completely laughable, tacking on an extra 10 minutes to a film which had pretty much already wrapped up earlier.

circumstantial evidence

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 6 October 2018]

Okay indictment of circumstantial evidence, when a man (Michael O'Shea) is convicted of murder and sentenced to death for a murder no one actually saw him commit. His son and his best friend set out to prove his innocence.

Pretty fair B movie.

Almost Watchable - Circumstantial Evidence

[arthur_tafero · 4/10 · 11 September 2023]

Other than being corny, convoluted, and highly unlikely, this film is almost watchable. Obviously a B script with a few decent actors (Lloyd Nolan, who is always very good, and Michael O'Shay, who gives it his best Jimmy Cagney imitation), the film suffers from a lot of preaching. And corny dialogue. There are a few uncertain moments at the conclusion of the film, but generally speaking, the script is so weak, that it is almost impossible for the actors to rescue the dialogue. O'Shay's character is dumb enough, however, to deserve a few years in jail for failing to take a plea of manslaugher and insisting on a murder trial that he has no chance of winning. Watch only if nothing else is available that night.

One for Harold Huber fans!

[JohnHowardReid · 8/10 · 28 March 2018]

Associate producer: John Stone. Executive producer: Sol M. Wurtzel. Copyright 22 October 1937 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation. New York opening at the Central: 18 September 1937 (ran one week). U.S. release: 22 October 1937. 6,125 feet. 68 minutes.

SYNOPSIS: A gangster's moll is murdered at the Hottentot Club. Charlie suspects foul play.

NOTES: Number fifteen of the sixteen pictures made by Warner Oland in the series, and the third of five (four with Oland and one with Toler) directed by Eugene Forde.

COMMENT: A lively entry with a great cast that will particularly delight Harold Huber's vast legion of fans. Harold has almost as much dialogue as Charlie himself in this one. In fact, all the players deliver solidly with the one notable exception of the player who is finally unmasked as the killer. Oddly, said player is happily convincing up to that moment but is then totally unable to strike the right murderous attitudes. Fortunately, the rest of the cast line-up more than compensates for this lapse, particularly Louise Henry (a charmingly vivacious catalyst), Joan Woodbury (who performs a torrid dance number with eye-catching dexterity), and the wonderfully perky heroine, Joan Marsh.

Director Forde's staging varies from happily out-of-the-box (the cortege of welcoming police cars speeding off to the blaring strains of "Chinatown, My Chinatown"), to the reasonably stylish (Miss Woodbury versus the camera hounds) to the inconspicuously incompetent (a couple of wrong angles here and there that edit none too smoothly).

As for the mystery itself, it's not only quite intriguing but fast paced and most lavishly (by "B"-picture standards) presented. Harry Jackson's lustrous photography deserves a special commendation.

Talkative and boring

[searchanddestroy-1 · 8 January 2023]

I only caught this film, as one early Charles Lamont's stuff, the future director of BAGDAD, which I will comment in a few minutes, and especially the Abott and Costello's adventures; at least most of them. Lamont was a prolific film maker whose most interesting and curious movie was SALOME WHERE SHE DANCED, and also SLAVE GIRL, both starring the also gorgeous and flaming Yvonne de Carlo. This one belongs to the long list of the thirties very very talkative movies, which the quality and interest was not always very obvious. The topic is not that bad however. It seems to be the same story - more or less - as Fritz Lang's BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT or John Sturges' THE MAN WHO DARED. So, from this point of view, and also considering that this Charles Lamont's film was made BEFORE the others two, yes we can consider it as interesting. Don't confound with another film made in 1945 under the same title, but not the same story, if my memory doesn't fail. Made by a forgotten and lost movie company Chesterfield. Hoops, sorry for the mistake; everyone will notice that I confounded myself ; I commented the 1945 film, instead the 1935 one which I just watched and just spoke about now...Sorry.