The Woman Condemned (1934) ** (out of 4)Newspaper reporter Jerry Beall (Richard Hemingway) gets caught up with the beauty of Barbara (Claudia Dell) that he pretty much forces himself into her life. It happens at a perfect time because Barbara is accused of murdering a woman but she claims that she is innocent so it's up to the reporter to prove it.THE WOMAN CONDEMNED is pretty much the standard "B" mystery that you'd expect from Poverty Row. The only thing really notable about it is the fact that it would turn out to be the final directorial job for Dorothy Davenport, better known and credited here as Mrs. Wallace Reid. Davenport had a number of acting credits in her career but she did direct seven movies as well.As far as this film goes, in all honesty it's a decent time-killer for fans of the genre but it's doubtful too many people will be having a good time with it. The plot is extremely thick for this type of film as it seems something new is being added every few minutes but I'm going to guess that this was done to try and make the film seem smarter than it actually was. The murder doesn't happen until the 35-minute mark, which leaves about half a hour to get it solved.Hemingway was pretty bland in the role of the reporter so he didn't add anything to the picture. You can spot Jason Robards, Sr. in a small role. Then you've got Dell who doesn't get much to do other than to constantly looked concerned over this or that. Lola Lane appears in a very brief role but she's certainly a highlight to the picture.THE WOMAN CONDEMNED really doesn't have too much going for it. The biggest bonus is that it's just 65-minutes long so if you have that to kill and enjoy the genre then you might want to check it out.

I've got a hunch that Jerry's got a hunch that he's got a hunch but that's just my hunch. WOW Jerry's favorite word: hunch. I counted 9 times he used the the word hunch. See how irritating that is? Well, I've just introduced you to Jerry who is a young wannabe investigator - I say wannabe because he's not that good. Jerry's girlfriend... err wife... has been charged with murder and Jerry does not believe that she did it - but that was just his hunch.This is one of those films that will have you saying to yourself "WTF did I just watch? What just happened?" It kinda makes sense at the end but it's not 100% crystal clear about the twin sister. Was there ever a twin? Did Jane play both parts or was the gun secretly switched with blanks somehow? There is something so weird about this horrible film that I liked it a tiny bit - just for the weirdness and not because it's good.4/10

I won't even try to provide a synopsis of the story. This is one of those mystery thrillers in which everything is thrown into the pot to make the story as intriguingly attention-grabbing as possible. And then having propounded a successfully unusual and highly suspenseful set of situations, the writers throw creativity to the wind in the last five minutes by solving the mystery in some clichéd manner that leaves the most purblind audience breathless with anger and disappointment. At least the elaborately constructed plot doesn't all turn out to be a dream, but the device used here is almost as hackneyed and almost equally a letdown.Nonetheless, by the extremely humble standard of Willis Kent bottom-of-the-rung-even-for-Poverty-Row productions, this movie is certainly a cut above the average "Z"-grader. It was the last film directed by Mrs Wallace Reid who has tried very hard (and very successfully) to create atmosphere and production values on an extremely meager budget. Given the sort of studio support and largess that Dorothy Arzner worked with, Mrs Reid would undoubtedly have done equally well, if not better. Yet feminists give all their attention to Arzner and none at all to Mrs Reid. Even the Arzner biography in IMDb claims that Arzner "was the only woman director during the Golden Age of Hollywood's studio system during the 1920s and 1930s." (Other Davenport films presently available are The Road to Ruin and Sucker Money).A major virtue of The Woman Condemned must be the fine performances provided by every member of the cast from charmingly charismatic hero Richard C. Hemingway (who never got anywhere), poorly photographed Claudia Dell (who had the shortest career as a major star on record — less than a year) and one-song Lola Lane, through to Neal Pratt's nice cameo as a sarcastic judge

This is about a woman who is killed (sort of). Other forces move in and people are set up. Now if the woman didn't die, what are the charges, or are there charges? Or are they trying to prove someone is up to no good for past acts. Let's see. People are being operated on. People look in windows. I don't know why? Who's on first? What's on second. There is a romance brewing. If I'd been that guy, I would have dropped that woman after the twelfth time she lied to him. I can't spoil the ending because I'm not sure what the ending was. Suffice it to say, there are lucid periods in the film, but the milieu is so cluttered and there are so many red herrings launched, it goes all over the place.