Ann Harding didn't realize it at the time, but her days as a Hollywood star ended with this tightly packed courtroom drama. Faced with declining box-office returns and guaranteed raises in her contract, the studio had declined to pick up the option for one of their best-paid stars shortly before production began. For her final project, Harding chose Rita Weiman's Cosmopolitan magazine story in hopes her recent courtroom battles with ex-husband Harry Bannister, over custody of their daughter, would draw in scandal-hungry audiences. The film, however, presented a different type of courtroom battle. Harding is one of the key witnesses when the man she loves, widower Walter Abel, is tried for murdering boss Douglass Dumbrille. Harding quietly smoldered throughout the proceedings until the explosive climax where she proved she still knew how to sell a script. Unfortunately, audiences weren't buying. Neither was Harding at one point. Midway through production she decided she was unhappy with the screenplay and tried to quit. Only the studio's threat to make her pay the $80,000 they'd already spent on the picture kept her in front of the cameras. Once the picture was done, she fled to England hoping to rebuild her career there. She would return to Hollywood six years later when she took a supporting role in MGM's Eyes in the Night (1942).

By Frank Miller