Best known as the narrator of the original Broadway production and movie version of "Our Town", Frank Craven was a well known character actor of his time who managed to get some lead parts in B films along the way. In this one, possibly set up to be a series, Craven plays a clever but basically decent district attorney who gives a class on circumstantial evidence to potential attorneys and explains the case where he was almost fooled by evidence that nearly set an innocent man to the electric chair. Told through his narration, this sometimes convoluted and frequently silly murder mystery covers the murder of a banker (Jerome Cowan) whose wife (Mary Howard) married him to spite the man she really loved (Donald Woods) and the methods Craven uses to smoke out the real killer when Woods confesses, seemingly to protect Howard who had earlier confessed. Interfering in the case, Craven's wife (June Walker) takes some odd steps to aide her husband, at one point, holding one man hostage and dousing him with buckets of water in order to get him to confess. This odd mix of mystery, law theory and comedy has way too many twists and turns to keep the viewer completely entranced, and at even at just over an hour, I couldn't wait for this to end.
Review of Thru Different Eyes
