Lady In The Death House

85. LADY IN THE DEATH HOUSE (1944-usa). With Jean Parker, Lionel Atwill, Marcia MAE JONES. Superb crime melodrama, proving that a “B-picture” meant low budget, certainly not low quality, in fact, there’s much more energy, style and ingenuity in this movie than in many big-budget efforts. Through an intriguingly intricate plot structure, including flashbacks within flashbacks, criminologist Lionel Atwill recounts the story of a woman who walked the last mile and courageously faced execution at the hands of none other than her own lover. The woman was convicted unjustly of murdering a vile blackmailer who had threatened to tell her boss that her father was a rackeÂteer. The criminologist and the woman’s boyfriend, a scientist who works as the state’s executioner (in order to further his research on reviving the dead!), try to find the real killer by assembling a complicated jigsaw puzzle of clues and circumstantial evidence. Time runs out, and she resigns herself to her execution; but the men wont give up, and the finale is an edge-of-the-seat, last-minute race to discover the truth and avert this miscarriage of justice. A model of concise, taut scriptwriting and direction, and a really entertaining piece of mystery and suspense. 57 minutes. Crime-Mystery-Suspense