When strait-laced district attorney Lionel Barrymore discovers that his daughter has been having an affair with ladies man Alan Mowbray, he confronts him. But Mowbray isn't easily intimidated. Barrymore's daughter is simply the latest in his long line of conquests and he will only leave her when he has made her life miserable. Barrymore has only one option -- to commit the perfect crime, murdering Mowbray. But this is a movie -- and you can't let a killer get away. So in what has to be one of the weirdest cop-outs in Hollywood history, Barrymore pays for his dastardly deed. I won't spoil the fun by telling you how it happens -- but you've got to give the screenwriter credit for truly bizarre ingenuity.

District attorney Lionel Barrymore is angered when old friend Alan Mowbray says he plans to marry Barrymore's daughter Madge Evans. He tells Mowbray (in a surprisingly funny scene) that he will kill him if he tries to go through with the wedding and he can get away with it because he knows so much about murder. Well, Mowbray goes ahead and announces the engagement and, sure enough, Papa Lionel kills him. The question now is will he get away with it or will Mowbray's longtime lover Kay Francis figure him out?Very nice direction and a particularly lively performance from Barrymore. Mowbray is only in the film for a brief time but he's sufficiently scuzzy to make you root for Lionel to get away with offing him. Kay Francis is good in her typically melodramatic fashion. The great C. Aubrey Smith is largely wasted in a minor role. Beautiful Madge Evans plays her part as well as can be expected given that the script makes her out to be a little bit of an airhead and a tease. She kisses her father on the mouth a lot and not just pecks either, which I found odd. But I've seen similar things in other films from the period so I'll just chalk that up to different sensibilities today. It's a good movie with an interesting twist at the end that some will probably see as a cop-out.

Guilty Hands (1931) Kay Frances, Lionel Barrymore, Madge Evans, Alan Mowbray. Babs(Evans) is wooed and won away from her young sweetheart by older cad, Gordan Rich(Mowbray). Her father, Barrymore(Richard Grant) vows to kill him and get away with it if he won't stop seeing Babs. Marjorie(Kay Francis) loves Gordan and sees what happens. . She threatens to unmask the real killer. It would take a few more years to have films made from the camera point-of-view This is melodrama 1931 style. Most actors came from the stage; lots of scripts were reworking Plays; directors also had mainly stage training. So, if we today criticize, using todays standards, it is very unfair. This is a fairly interesting plot, with mostly pros in the title roles. The star in Barrymore and he is good. Kay Francis has lovely fashions to wear, and holds her own. And because it is pre-code, a surprising ending. 7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021933/

This movie gets off to a good start: we hear but do not see a man (Lionel Barrymore with his so distinctive voice) expound as to whether or not murder is ever justified and if the perfect murder can be committed. Barrymore as Richard grant is a former District Attorney who has prosecuted many murderers. He is on his way to an estate to draw up a new will for his client Gordon Rich (Mowbray). Mowbray convincingly portrays a truly nasty and repulsive human being who informs Grant that he plans to marry Grant's daughter. Grant threatens to kill him. The daughter's (Babs) attraction to Mowbray to the point where she insists she will marry him is unfathomable. This is, for me, the weakest part of the plot. Rich ends up dead and his mistress Marjorie West (Francis) insists that it was murder despite Grant's persuasive argument that it was suicide. Second weak plot point – West's hysterical insistence that it was murder is way overdone and not believable and her doing the "noble" thing at the end of the movie does not ring true. The ending was a shocker (although kinda silly) and, in hindsight, I should have seen it coming. It was Barrymore's performance that made this movie for me. There was one plot devise that falls into the category of "what a coincidence." The same week I saw this movie, I also watched Boston Blackie's Chinese Venture. Although each had a slightly different spin, both movies used the same basic gimmick to establish alibis. A gimmick I don't remember seeing in any other movie and to see it twice in one week was weird.