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Journal Of A Crime (1934) Gets Away With Murder
Pre-coders got away with a lot, including murder. Ones that committed it often ducked prosecution where baddies had death coming. There was more-than-once occasion when a Ricardo Cortez demise would go un-avenged. Characters we liked could rid themselves of pesky blackmailers or abusive lovers and be excused for it. Did this encourage self-help toward justice? Censors thought so, as in one more instance of movies being a corrupt influence upon soft minds that might imitate a Kay Francis or Loretta Young pulling triggers on villainy they and society would be better off rid of. Strict Code application would end all that, result a downer for third acts where sympathetic leads faced jail or the noose for crimes we'd endorse. Many a rug was pulled from under stories that were fun almost to the fade, then spoiled by rigid rules that made no narrative sense, but had to be observed. Never mind sex and sin banned off screens after mid-1934, this was what stung fans the deepest.
Journal Of A Crime got under a lowering net by dent of March 1934 release, mere months before crackdown was complete. The thing could not have been made at all a year later, for it turns on a woman who kills her husband's mistress and does not answer to law enforcement. A vehicle for Ruth Chatterton, whose value to Warner Bros. was coming under question after they filched her from Paramount (a major flap between the two companies a result), Journal Of A Crime finds current interest for cunning way it takes Chatterton off the hook for shooting in cold blood a woman (Claire Dodd) who would steal husband Adolphe Menjou. We're teased by Chatterton coming within whiskers of confessing to the D.A., this not happening thanks to circumstances we welcome. The audience becomes complicit in the murder for not wanting Ruth brought to book for it, and I wonder how many in 1934 exited venues in a state of moral confusion, even guilt at being glad for Chatterton's evade of justice. My guess is all was OK thanks to such endings being business as usual, or at least often, for consumers of precode. A thought: Were jury sitters swayed by examples got from movies, result being criminals acquitted because they were right guys/gals other than at moments they robbed or killed?
