I Am the Law *** (1938, Edward G Robinson, Barbara O’Neil, John Beal, Otto Kruger, Wendy Barrie) – Classic Movie Review 9326

Director Alexander Hall’s 1938 black and white Columbia Pictures crime thriller I Am the Law stars Edward G Robinson as law professor John Lindsay, who turns from law professor to city special prosecutor to go after a crime ring, in a job offered to him by civic leader Eugene Ferguson (Otto Kruger).

Lindsay‘s old students help him out when the crime ring crook racketeers corrupt his workers. And Ferguson’s son Paul (John Beal), helps Lindsay too, unaware his father is the crime syndicate boss.

Luckily Robinson seems at home in a tailor-made role and he turns it into a fine, fiery one-man show that is pretty well done all round. But, acting-wise, co-stars Barbara O’Neil as his wife Jerry, John Beal as corrupt city boss Paul Ferguson, Eugene Ferguson’s son, and Wendy Barrie as gangster’s moll Frankie Ballou are not nearly as happy as Robinson, though Otto Kruger is strong and sinister as civic leader Eugene Ferguson.

However, Hall’s direction keeps plugging away, and the film is brisk, tense and commendably compact in its short running time of only 83 minutes.

Jo Swerling’s screenplay is based on a Liberty Magazine serial story by Fred Allhoff. The film is sparked by the story of real-life district attorney Thomas Edmund Dewey (1902 – 1971), the American lawyer, prosecutor, and politician, who also served as the 47th governor of New York from 1943 to 1954.

Also in the cast are Arthur Loft, Marc Lawrence, Douglas Wood, Robert Middlemass, Ivan Miller, Charles Halton, Louis Jean Heydt, Fay Helm, Lane Chandler, Frederick Burton, Bess Flowers, Edward Keane, Edward Le Saint, Edward Thomas, Lucien Littlefield, Robert Cummings Sr, James Flavin, James Bush, Lester Dorr, Emory Parnell, Cyril Ring, Lee Shumway, Theodore von Eltz, George Turner, Lloyd Whitlock, Jack Woody, James Millican, Frank Mayo, Eddie Foster, Byron Foulger, Harney Clark, Eddie Fetherstone, Allen Fox, Bud Jamison, Jeffery Sayre and Walter Soderling.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9326

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