True Confession

Ein Mordsschwindel

Retrospective 2022

Source: Deutsche Kinemathek, courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing, LLC

Would-be writer Helen Bartlett is an inveterate teller of tall tales. Her husband, Ken, on the other hand, is an upright lawyer who believes in the truth, and nothing but the truth. Helen gets a job but quits immediately when her boss makes aggressive sexual advances. When he’s found shot dead shortly thereafter, she is accused of murder. Under police interrogation, Helen confesses to the crime, but doesn’t have the courage to tell her husband that her confession was a lie. Ken represents her at trial and pleads the case as self-defence. But there is an odd observer in the courtroom who seems to know the truth about what really happened … This wild comedy of marriage and justice is based on a French play and heaps one implausible incident onto the next. With her tongue often literally in her cheek, and a goodly dose of self-irony, Carole Lombard spins one fantabulous yarn after the next in service of the overwrought plot. Even Hollywood’s czar of public morals, Will H. Hays, had to forgive its evils, due to “the general farcical nature of the entire production and the grotesqueness of the scenes in the court”.

by Wesley Ruggles
with Carole Lombard, Fred MacMurray, John Barrymore, Una Merkel, Porter Hall, Edgar Kennedy, Lynne Overman, Irving Bacon, Fritz Feld, Richard Carle USA 1937 English 84’ Black/White

With

Carole Lombard
Fred MacMurray
John Barrymore
Una Merkel
Porter Hall
Edgar Kennedy
Lynne Overman
Irving Bacon
Fritz Feld
Richard Carle

Crew

Director	Wesley Ruggles
Screenplay	Claude Binyon based on the play “Mon Crime” (1934) by Louis Verneuil and Georges Berr
Cinematography	Ted Tetzlaff
Editing	Paul Weatherwax
Music	Frederick Hollander, Sam Coslow
Sound	Earl Hayman, Don Johnson
Art Director	Hans Dreier, Robert Usher
Costumes	Travis Banton
Producer	Albert Lewin

Produced by

Paramount Pictures, Inc. (A Wesley Ruggles Production)

Additional information

Print: WDR Filmarchiv