Career Woman (1936) User Reviews

A small town girl returns home after graduation

[blanche-2 · 7/10 · 18 November 2021]

Claire Trevor is a young "Career Woman" in this 1936 film also starring Michael Whalen, Isabel Jewell, Eric Linden, Gene Lockhart, and Virginia Field.

Trevor plays Carroll Aiken, soon to graduate from law school. She attends court to see the famous attorney Barry Conant in action. He is a showman but while doing his shenanigans, he spots Carroll and later makes a big play for her. She's not interested. She also tells him that as soon as she graduates in a week, she's returning for a time to her home town in the midwest.

Carroll's memories of the town, she soon realizes, need some adjustment. She resumes a friendship with Gracie Clay (Jewell) and even gives her a dress.

Later, at a 4th of July celebration, Gracie is found by her strict and awful father (Charles Middleton) as she consoles the boy she loves (Linden). When they arrive home, Gracie's father whips her.

Trying to get away from him, she hits him with a hairbrush, and he falls down a flight of stairs and dies. Though just a beginner in the law, Carroll agrees to represent her.

Carroll is overwhelmed in court, with the judge giving bad rulings - and it's obvious the jury is dying to convict Gracie. Not only that, the town disapproves of Carroll because she is a female lawyer. In walks guess who, Conant, to help in his unique way.

Enjoyable film, and though the monologue Trevor does is melodramatic and calls for emotional acting, Trevor does a beautiful job of keeping it more natural. Whelan is a riot with his courtroom antics, and Isabel Jewell is very sympathetic as the poor defendant.

It's not the greatest, but the actors all did a good job. Eric Linden, Jewell's love interest, came from the theater and returned to it permanently in 1941.

Neither Fish Nor Fowl Nor Good Red Meat

[boblipton · 5/10 · 2 December 2019]

Claire Trevor has just passed the Bar in New York City and has treated herself by watching criminal defense attorney Michael Whalen in action. He's a flimflamming, grand-standing shyster who makes a three-ring circus out of the court to get his clients off. He makes a play for Miss Trevor, but she's not interested. She's going home to her tiny home town for a visit, then back to the law to practice something finer.

Once home, however, she gets involved with beaten down Isabel Jewell. Miss Jewell and the prosecuting attorney's son are in love, but even though they do nothing wrong, they're terrified of their fathers. Miss Jewell is right to be so. When jilted Big Boy Williams catches her, he peaches on her to her father, Charles Middleton. He takes her into the attic and tries to whip the Devil out of her. She strikes back to defend herself, and Middleton falls to his death. Miss Jewell begs Miss Trevor to defend her, and she agrees.

This movie tries to be too much for a B movie. It's a romantic comedy. It's an indictment of small-town prejudices. It's a screwball comedy. It's a serious legal drama. A capable cast struggles to deal with the script, but the constant change in tone -- one moment Miss Trevor is reproaching Mr. Whalen, the next he's being dragged out by a lynch mob, and the next it's all a hoax -- leaves the audience too confused and exhausted to do anything but shake its collection of heads.

There are some wonderful bits in this movie. Although I found the plethora of one-note characters tiresome, Gene Lockhart's continually grumbling uncle is a delight, and Miss Trevor gives a fine closing argument in one shot. However, this movie looks like no one knew what it was to be when it was finished.

Claire Trevor Excels in Small Town Courtroom Drama

[JohnHowardReid · 9/10 · 9 July 2008]

Courtroom dynamics pre-Perry Mason, are the main concern of this most ingratiatingly acted and expansively produced melodrama. True, the satire on small-town prejudice is a bit dated now, but scenarist Lamar Trotti provides some still-hilarious asides. One of the best has Spencer Charters, who has unfazedly announced himself as "proprietor of the best store in town", dilating upon the purchase price of the murder weapon.

The tautly suspenseful proceedings are also enhanced by Lewis Seiler's cool and efficient direction. Other technical credits, especially the art direction and photography (I couldn't split the work of the two cameramen), are equally professional.

Small town small mindless plays moral policeman for all.

[mark.waltz · 8/10 · 27 August 2015]

One of the great surprises of my cinema viewing is this delightfully emotional courtroom drama of a lady lawyer (Claire Trevor) returning to her provincial hometown to find out that nothing has changed even though the world around them has. The film doesn't start off focusing on her, but a very bombastic New York attorney (Michael Whalen) out to prove a young woman innocent of killing her boyfriend. It takes only a chuck of cheese, but he manages to do it, and among the audience in the courtroom are some law students, the most serious of which is Ms. Trevor who questions Whalen on his methods. Back in the middle of her babbity community, Trevor realizes quickly as to why she moved to the big city. Sweet young Isabel Jewell is under the thumb of her bible-thumping father (Charles Middleton), the type of hypocrite who believes in beating salvation into his children. In love with young Eric Linden, Jewell is spotted hugging him, and in a confrontation with her father, accidentally causes his death. Trevor becomes her attorney and is given sudden, unwanted assistance by the visiting Whalen who seems to cause more harm than good in Jewell's case.

This powerful drama covers so many major topics that it becomes instantly riveting. The confrontation between Jewell and Middleton is downright scary, and anybody who has ever had to deal with any kind of child abuse will identify with the fear in Jewell's eyes and might even recall their own desire to kill the abuser. Whelan, who had a lengthy career but isn't much remembered today, plays the type of role that Warren William, George Brent and William Powell excelled at, and is sly in his every movement in court. However, what is truly mesmerizing is the expose of the hypocritical lives which these townsfolk live. It seems that the only one in this babbity community is Trevor's own uncle (Gene Lockhart) who hates change but also obviously hates the self-righteous attitudes of his long-time neighbors. They truly are pathetic, whether it be Linden's equally bible-thumping parents (Charles Waldron and Kathleen Lockhart) or social services employee Eily Malyon who finds it her moral duty to keep the young on what the older community thinks the right path.

Trevor is excellent in one of her early leads and very subtle, unlike many of her later character roles. Whelan explodes in a wonderful scene in court, telling off these close-minded bigots and letting them know who they really are without leaving any stone unturned. This doesn't pass by without comedy, with Sterling Holloway and a few geeky women as Trevor's fellow law students, Edward Brophy and Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams as some of Whelan's associates, but also unfortunately El Brendel over-using his fake Swedish accent that always lands flat with me. It's the seriousness and emotional impact of how Jewell's case moves forward, and the hope that these small town elders will change their ways (and stop judging big city folk for being immoral and crooked) that makes this drama truly memorable.