Within the Law

I've been going through all the B movies I recorded during TCM's salute to B movies last summer, and I think I've finally gotten to the last of the movies I recorded. That would be Within the Law, which has some similarities to the previous one I blogged about, Convicted Women. In any case, having watched Within the Law, now I can do the post on it.

Ruth Hussey, early in her career before she had her breakout role in The Philadelpha Story, plays Mary Turner, working as a shopgirl in Gilder's (Samuel S. Hinds) department store, in the jewelry department. She's dumb enough to leave some of the items on the counter and telling another clerk to watch them. A third clerk takes one of the pieces, intending to store it in her locker until closing time. However, some detectives come into the locker room, forcing this mystery clerk to look for somebody else's unlocked locker to hide the stolen piece. That locker just happens to be the one belonging to Mary. Gilder decides to make a lesson of Mary, with her ultimately getting a three-year sentence.

In prison, she meets Agnes (Rita Johnson) who's been working con games with her boyfriend Garson (Paul Kelly), only to be the one to get caught this last time. Mary and Agnes become friends, but while Agnes intends to go back to Garson once she gets out, Mary looks for a way to get revenge on Gilder. But, because she's got so much time on her hands in prison, she takes books out of the prison library, specifically law books. Her revenge on Gilder is going to be strictly legal.

Eventually, she and Agnes get out of the slammer, and Agnes puts Mary up in part because Mary could use a place to live, while Agnes likes the idea that Mary knows enough about the law to be able to help her and her boyfriend's gang con people in a perfectly legal way. And Mary is surprisingly clever for someone who isn't really a lawyer.

But Mary's plan for revenge on Gilder is to find Gilder's son Richard (Tom Neal) and "con" him into marrying her, although this con is only immoral, not illegal. Richard falls in love with Mary, and because he's a licensed pilot, is able to take a plane to another jurisdiction to elope with Mary before his father can learn what's going on. But complications arise when Mary finds herself falling in love with Richard. He, for his part, fairly stupidly believes that Mary can't possibly be guilty of shoplifting. (The fact that he's right is immaterial; he's still fairly naïve.) A much bigger complication is that Garson decides that with Mary in the Gilder place, he might be able to worm his way into the place and get his gang to steal some of Gilder's artworks.

Within the Law is based on a play that was first staged in 1912, which may be why the plot seems so unbelievable even for a movie from the 1930s. But despite how much the material strains credulity, it's still surprisingly entertaining, thanks to a good performance from Ruth Hussey, and all the sheen that MGM could put on a movie. Within the Law is one of the surprise cases where MGM's gloss actually helps a movie by getting a fine cast for the material. It's definitely worth a watch if it shows up anywhere.