The Tattered Dress (1957)

Memorable, crazy movie

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Jeff Chandler plays James Gordon Blane, a hot-shot lawyer from New York City who comes to a small town to defend some rich folks accused of murder. Blane is able to get a acquittal and almost immediately is arrested for paying off one of the jurors. The accusation is that he paid her $5000 to vote not guilty...and money Blane lost the night before playing cards is submitted as evidence of the bribe. Obviously, Blane's been set-up and no one seems particularly upset by that-- least of which the Sheriff (Jack Carson), who was torn to pieces on the witness stand in the previous case. It's a vendetta and he'll apparently stop at nothing to get Blane....and that might even include murder!This was a great film in many ways...up to a point. Rarely have I seen a film go from exceptional to crap so quickly! The first time was late in the film when Blane gets his accuser on the witness stand...she implicates herself (yet oddly folks seem to think the opposite) and then wildly stands up and faints right in the middle of the scene!! This is histrionic and stupid. Then, only moments later when a guy (George Tobias) finds a hole in the prosecution's case, the scene involving the sheriff killing this witness is also overdone and like a cliché...a bad one at that. Later, when the Sheriff is on the stand...well, it's pretty ridiculous as well! And, the summation by Blane near the end is just ridiculous! Sadly, the film had been humming along marvelously...only to sink due to some seriously bad writing that should have been edited out! And, it's frustrating that you like a movie this much and invest this much into it...only to have sloppy writing practically ruin it. The first half, I'd score an 8...the last portion a 2! As a result of a very weak second half, I'd say don't waste your time with this one.

'The Tattered Dress' is the second of four programmers released by Universal in 1957 directed by Jack Arnold, who had started the year extremely auspiciously with 'The Incredible Shrinking Man'. 'The Tattered Dress' was the first of two films he made set in the deep south: the latter being 'Man in the Shadow', in which Jeff Chandler played the honest sheriff of a fictitious cow town called Spurline who crosses swords with a ruthless local ranch owner played by Orson Welles. In 'The Tattered Dress' it's the sheriff (played by Jack Carson) who's the heavy; and Chandler the lawyer from New York come to defend a wealthy local spiv for the murder of a popular local sports hero to whom his trashy wife had lately taken a shine. After a glorious opening sequence resembling a series of dime novel covers of the period, Chandler arrives in Desert View, Nevada; and the moment he steps off the train the unfriendly looks he gets tell us we're in 'Mississippi Burning' territory. Like most Hollywood films since time immemorial it takes a remarkably cynical view of lawyers and the law ("I could spend hours telling you of innocent men imprisoned and executed because of clumsy and uninspired defences"), but treats its often lurid subject matter in a rather lacklustre and talky fashion. Jeffrey Chandler isn't the most convincing of casting as a cynical and ruthless lawyer whose motto is "If you're guilty get James Gordon Blane" (it would have been perfect for Carson, actually); and most of the excellent supporting cast aren't really at their best, with the notable exception of Edward Andrews in a very small part and Gail Russell (whose vulnerable appearance is enhanced by the regrettable fact that she was in reality drinking herself to death at the time) as a pawn in a dastardly plot by crooked sheriff Jack Carson to cook Chandler's goose.Two nice uses by Arnold of the Cinemascope screen were the way Chandler's until now estranged wife Jeanne Crain signals that their conjugal relations are about to resume by pulling shut the curtains in his hotel suite; and the slight but perceptible little sigh of relief visible on the part of the court stenographer (played by Robert Haines) when Chandler's passionate summary to the jury finally ends.

Universal Studios -- known for colossal stupendous productions like "Francis The Talking Mule" and "Abbott And Costello Meet The Invisible Man" -- presents a rather neat little courtroom drama directed by Jack Arnold, who gave us such compelling art films as "Tarantula." I'm kind of making fun of it but I really shouldn't, because, if it lacks poetry, it's still not bad.Briefly, Jeff Chandler is a high-priced New York criminal lawyer who comes to the little town of Desert Valley to defend some potentate who murdered his luscious wife's rapist. At least we think she was raped. Elaine Stewart, of Montclair, New Jersey, is an outrageous flirt. She's hardly a receding type of personality, and the only evidence is her testimony and her tattered dress.Chandler gets the killer off but the town is enraged because they liked the murder victim. The local corrupt sheriff (Carson) and his consort (Russell) concoct a frame and charge Chandler with jury tampering, obstruction of justice, bribery, and ordering rare steak for strange women on trains. He defends himself but, as his wife, Jeanne Crain, points out, a lawyer who defends himself has a fool for a client.For a smart lawyer, he's pretty clumsy. He shouts at Gail Russell on the stand until she faints, or pretends to, winning the sympathy of the jury. Chandler gives the role everything he's got but there's not much there. When he's not shouting staccato at the witnesses, his only other approach to acting is a deep nasal baritone that indicates deep thought. He has strong features, in addition to that masculine voice, and his skull is brachycephalic, shaped rather like a bowling ball.Jeanne Crain is slender and lovely. The reason she's here, as Chandler's estranged wife, is to return to him when he needs comforting. "When pain and anguish wring the brow, a ministering angel Thou!" Gail Russell was improbably beautiful, vulnerable, and sexy ten years earlier but she'd been pounding a lot of booze lately and it had begun to show, though she was only in her early 30s when this was shot. She died miserably a few years later, a shame.Lamentably, Jack Arnold is stuck with a plot-driven script with no nuance at all. In "Tarantula", John Agar is allowed to muse after hearing a strange sound in the Mojave: "Everything that has ever walked or crawled has left its mark on this desert." Nothing like that here. George Zuckerman, the writer, hasn't given Arnold much wiggle room with the characters or the narrative. Carson as the murderous sheriff is immediately recognizable for what he is -- a "Southern" type sheriff, you know; the kind that smiles in a friendly-like way while he thrusts his fist down your throat and yanks out your pyloric sphincter. And George Tobias as the worn-out Las Vegas comic is there only to be killed. I kept waiting for it.The direction, on the whole is pretty slack. When giving his summation to the jury in what appears to be one unending take with few reaction shots, Chandler has a habit of lacing his fingers together as if about to crack his knuckles. He rarely DOESN'T do it. All Jack Arnold had to do was say, "Jeff, do something else with your hands."

There seems to me as a writer and critic to be a bad tendency among U.S. reviewers to confuse their emotional and unaccountable reactions with information. For instance, I regard Jeff Chandler as a very good classical actor; I assert this because he has the vocal power, sufficient emotional voltage and the high intelligence to play characters in the distant past, future, positions of nobility and professions.  But I also claim to be able to tell among his strongest portrayals, and those which were less successful. In "A Tattered Dress", for instance, the dress referring to the robes which cloak the naked female statue of justice, I believe Chandler has one of his most fascinating parts in this film by anyone's standards.  And one of his best successes.He plays a lawyer who was refused employment as a poor student once he had been admitted to the bar in the Depression era; to overcome this injustice, he began taking clients who were criminals, who could pay him. In the years since then, he has become a famous and deeply- hated lawyer, because of those criminals whom he represents. The fascinating twist to this Jack Arnold directed noir is that he wins his original case. A husband had been accused of having killed his wife's lover, after she has come with "a tattered dress'. Then, thanks to collusion between the town's average-guy closet-dictator sheriff, and those supporting him, the lawyer finds himself accused of having bribed a juror during the case. His estranged wife returns to stand by him; he elects to be defended by the best lawyer he knows, himself. and this proves to alienate the townsfolk even further. He shakes the juror's testimony, but he must resort to a magnificent last defense, equating the tattered dress with justice itself that is thwarted, to plead his case as a human being who has been wronged more than he has wronged anyone. he is acquitted, which leads to a strongly-written climax and ending. This is a well-made and well-directed thriller; besides veteran Arnold's direction, this B/W drama features original music by Frank Skinner and Henry Mancini, fine cinematography by Carl E. Guthrie, outstanding art direction by Alexander Golitzen and Bill Newberry, set decorations by John P. Austin and Russell A Gausman. The very good costumes were the creation of J.A. Morely, Jr., with makeup being the work of Bud Westmore. Among the cast, Jeff Chandler's work as the lawyer accused is award level and memorable, varied in tone and nuanced. Others who brought to life George Zuckerman's finely-crafted script, drawn from a novel included Jack Carson as the sheriff, Jeanne Crain as the lawyer's wife, Gail Russell as the juror in question, Philip Reed as the husband, plus talented Edward Andrews Elaine Edwards, George Tobias, Edward Platt, Alexander Lockwood, Paul Birch, Edwin Jerome and William Schallert. This is a film that must be judged I assert by what it is, not what any observer wished it might have been. It is a very powerful indictment of U.s. societal justice as long ago as the 1930s; and of the citizens of a representative town who allow their prejudices to interfere with their judgment. Similar movies had been made, in the same era as this, about other democratically-elected governments and their statist countries, such as England and France. But the content of this scorching indictment of postmodernist truth-twisters and their all-too-willing victims is a very United States story, and one coming from the H.U.A.C era as well. A very strong film.