The Lady in Question

With Glenn Ford being the current Star of the Month on TCM, I've been taking the opportunity to record some of his movies that I haven't done blog posts on before. First up is The Lady in Question.

This is an early Ford film, so he's not the star here. That honor goes to Brian Aherne, playing Andre Morestan, that father in a Parisian family that runs a bicycle shop together with wife Michele (Irene Rich). Andre has been called for jury duty, a prospect that fills him with excitement. He's very much looking forward to doing his civic duty, unlike most people.

The trial he winds up sitting on is the murder trial of Natalie Roguin (Rita Hayworth). She had been seeing a rich guy and supposedly been looking to get more money out of him, with the guy eventually winding up being killed. Despite the fact that the evidence against her is fairly flimsy, the thinking is that she's going to be convicted. But Andre is apparently taken by her, interrupting the trial to ask questions and fighing for a not guilty verdict in the jury room.

Eventually he wins out, but another of the jurors remains convinced that Nathalie is guilty. As for Natalie herself, she became so notorious that nobody wants to give her a job. In need of money, she approaches Andre, he having given her his address after the trial in what seems like a reality-defying move. The result of the meeting is that Andre offers Nathalie a job at the bicycle shop, and a place to stay.

With Natalie at the shop, she meets Andre's son Pierre (Glenn Ford), and the two wind up falling in love although there are are a whole bunch of complications along the way. Mom wonders what's going on between her husband and Natalie, and one of the jurors keeps showing up insisting Natalie was actually guilty. It gets to the point that Dad might actually believe he voted the wrong way at trial.

I had a fair amount of problems with The Lady in Question, mostly having to do with the fact that the movie seemed so detached from reality. The trial in particular was supposed to be funny, but something I found grating. Aherne has to then keep engaging in a comedy of lies to keep people from finding out the truth, even though we know Pierre knows the truth since we saw him at the trial in one scene. Still, Hayworth and Ford do well together, and it's easy to see why they would be reunited a half dozen years later for Gilda. It's just too bad this first pairing wasn't in service of a better story.

The Lady in Question is available on DVD from Columbia's MOD scheme, so you can watch and judge for yourself should you like.