***SPOILERS*** Interesting but a bit nutty courtroom drama with big time defense attorney Steve Barnes, Tom Conway, trying to get his client as well as girlfriend night club singer Georgia "On his Mind" Gale, Martha O'Briscoll, off on a murder rap that he in fact committed. Well not exactly murder but self-defense. That's when Georgia's mobbed up boss Club Circle owner Vic Wright, Robert Armstrong, got into a scuffle with Barnes and after he dropped his gun, that he was going to shoot Barnes with, it went off accidentally hitting and killing him!What started all this was Barnes planning to release to the press photos and motion picture film of Wright's brainless kid brother Frankie,Steve Brodie, paying off judges district attorneys and politicians to look the other way in not having him indited for, among other things, serving liquor to minors in his club as well as not having a genuine, his is faked, liquor license to boot! It was Georgia's misfortune to have dropped into her boss Vic Wright's office just as her lover Barnes checked out and be spotted, with smoking gun in hand, by kid brother Frankie! Barnes! Now determined to prove Georgia innocent Barnes tries to prove that he not Georgia was the one who gunned down Vic Wright! It never seemed to occur to Barnes that if he succeeded in getting Georgia off while getting himself convicted he may well up not only disbarred but put behind bars for life or even executed from killing Vic Wright! That's if his self-defense strategy in shooting Wright backfires and is not believed by the jury!**SPOILERS*** In a typical feel good Hollywood style ending everything turns out to be all right for both Bearnes and Georgia in the end. It's Bernes private secretary Joan Mason, June Claynorth, who in fact was secretly working for Vic Wright who was an eye witness to his death by being in the other room and watching the whole scene through a peephole. It's Joan who finally, with a little persuasion on Barnes' part, came through for him in the film's final and almost laughable sequence. But that's after a number of the late Vic Wright's goons were apprehend by the police right inside the courtroom spectator galley as they were about to blast Joan to keep her from talking!

Criminal Court (1946) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Robert Wise directed this RKO noir about lawyer Steve Barnes (Tom Conway) who accidentally kills a gangster (Robert Armstrong) but he's thrown for a loop when his girlfriend (Martha O'Driscoll) is accused of the crime because she worked at his nightclub. The lawyer, who just happens to be running for D.A., tries to confess to the crime but no one believes him so he must find another way to prove her innocence. CRIMINAL COURT is a "B" movie that is so far-fetched that at times you really have to laugh wondering if the screenwriter wasn't just making things up as the filming went along. I say that because there are so many twists and turns in this film yet every single one of them are ones that you'll see coming from a mile away. It certainly doesn't help that all of them perfectly fit in place not because they're smart but because they're just so obvious. As far as a mystery goes, this thing is about as simple as they come but none of this completely kills the film thanks in large part to some fine direction by Wise and some fun performances. Conway is completely believable in his role as the hot shot lawyer who will stop at nothing to win a case. Montgomery only appears in half the film but he was a lot of fun as well. Both O'Driscoll and June Clayworth are good in their parts even though both of their characters are probably the weakest in the film. CRIMINIAL COURT certainly isn't going to win any awards but at just 63-minutes the thing moves along well enough that fans of the genre should enjoy it.

Lawyer Tom Conway (Steve) is on a campaign to become elected DA at the same time as battling court cases against the local criminal gang. He finds himself having to defend his girlfriend Martha O'Driscoll on a charge of murdering one of the top bad guys Robert Armstrong (Vic). O'Driscoll is innocent but things don't look good for her. Conway has one chance of saving her from being guilty - he has to find the one witness to the crime that can save her.The cast are all good and Tom Conway is very easy to relate to with his relaxed approach. It's a standard crime story that's easy to follow and keeps you watching to see how lawyer Tom Conway is going to swing things in his favour. Nothing special going on but still entertaining.

Director Robert Wise, near the beginning of his career, made a decent lawyer film with a good ending. There's not much suspense, and the plot device owes much to the play, "Hat, Coat and Glove"; and it is no surprise that Tom Conway was in a film re-make of that play when it was made into a movie a second time. While this might not be great noir, it is certainly a "B movie" that is easy to watch.