Mjeteconer
Just perfect...
Contentar
Best movie of this year hands down!
Mehdi Hoffman
There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.
Cassandra
Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.
bkoganbing
Loretta Young was borrowed from 20th Century Fox to appear opposite Franchot Tone in this British based drama about a rising young and titled attorney played by Tone who is expecting an appointment from the Crown as a new attorney general. Of course that will happen upon conclusion of the case he is prosecuting now of Dudley Digges accused of murdering his wife.In the meantime Tone's wife gets an intrusive visit at a dinner party by Henry Daniell. It seems as though he's in possession of some letters that Tone wrote to his wife indicating a nasty affair. But in the tradition of the old badger game Daniell at his sneering best is willing to take a payoff.What happens is that the wife of Daniell winds up dead and it's Tone looking good for it because he can't come up with an alibi. This strangely parallels the situation Tone has in court with Digges who cannot confirm his own alibi when his own wife is killed.The blend of British and American players seem to work well here as people like Tone and Lewis Stone who plays the Scotland Yard Inspector with their classical training fit well with the players of Hollywood's British colony. This could have been a lot better though. The Unguarded Hour seems poised to jump into comedy especially when Roland Young is on the screen. But it never quite makes it. Still Young gets a few droll lines in as everybody's favorite house guest.Fans of the stars and some of the most well known character players from Hollywood's golden age should approve.
whpratt1
This 1936 film is a great film Classic with outstanding veteran actors who made this into a great dramatic story concerning Lady Helen Dudley Dearden, (Loretta Young) who tries to protect her husband from a past relationship with a young woman. Sir Alan Dearden (Franchot Tone) is an outstanding lawyer who is about to be chosen as Attorney General and his wife Lady Helen is being blackmailed by Hugh Lewis (Henry Daniell) with a bunch of love letters that Sir Alan had sent to this woman. The story gets quite involved with a man being accused of killing his wife and also another murder of a woman Sir Alan had an affair with. There is a very tricky ending to this film that you will not be able to figure out until the very ending of this film. Roland Young, (William "Bunny" Jeffers ) gave a great supporting role to this great film classic.
F Gwynplaine MacIntyre
'The Unguarded Hour' takes its title from the existentialist premise (expounded in this film's dialogue) that every man's life contains an interval in which circumstances conspire to deprive him of all his defences, leaving him a pawn of fate. How true, how true.I'm a great fan of the films of Sam Wood, a craftsman who remains sadly underrated. Even film historian William K Everson insisted on knocking Wood and calling him untalented. Contemporary reports indicate that Wood was a racist and an unpleasant man who founded some very dubious political causes, yet his films consistently show solid proficiency and some subtle symbolism. Regrettably, 'The Unguarded Hour' contains some howlingly unlikely plot twists, a few extra-long coincidences and some very implausible motivations, including one plot twist at the end that's fatally contrived.SPOILERS COMING. Sir Alan Dearden is a promising young barrister, of whom great things are expected. He is currently prosecuting Samuel Metford, a meek little man charged with pushing his wife off the white cliffs of Dover. Oddly, the trial drags on for many days even though there are no witnesses. Metford's pathetic defence is that he warned his wife to keep away from the cliff's edge, and an unidentified woman passed by as he said this. But the woman can't be located, so Metford has no witness. Sir Alan confides all this to his beautiful wife Lady Helen.The unknown woman is in fact Lady Helen. Sir Alan has been blackmailed by Lewis, a scoundrel who possesses letters written to the oddly named Diana Roggers ten years before he married Lady Helen. If those letters were to resurface now, the embarrassment would put paid to Sir Alan's career. When Lady Helen passed the Metfords, she was en route to paying Lewis £2,000 for the letters. Now she daren't come forward, lest the information come out. (Amazingly, she won't even tell her husband!) Matters get worse when extremely contrived circumstances make Sir Alan a suspect in a new murder. Lady Helen wants to clear him but she can't. Then, at the end, Sir Alan is cleared by the unlikeliest person in this film, the one who has the most to gain if Sir Alan is *not* cleared.'The Unguarded Hour' is entertainingly told but is a complete load of cobblers. If Loretta Young weren't so beautiful, I would never have sat through this rubbish. The film boasts some excellent production values, and quite a few of those great supporting actors from Hollywood's golden age. Henry Daniell is especially hissable as the blackmailer. But this is implausible rubbish. I'll rate 'The Unguarded Hour' 3 points out of 10.
Sleepy-17
Great dialogue, the beautiful and sexy Loretta, Henry Daniell at his sleazy best, Roland Young with his gay-friend-who-flirts-with-the-wife quips, a plot that keeps you guessing: like many an entertaining film, the parts are more than the sum. So much fun that its unbelievable ending just seems out of place. Its source is one of those clever stage mysteries made for the Middle Class. Most of Sam Wood's movies are pretty good; it's not that far from the Marx Brothers to this.