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Illegal (1955)iMDB Rating: 7.0
Date Released : 16 March 1956
Genre : Crime, Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller
Stars : Edward G. Robinson, Nina Foch, Hugh Marlowe, Jayne Mansfield
Movie Quality : BRrip
Format : MKV
Size : 700 MB

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Ambitious D.A. Victor Scott zealously prosecutes Ed Clary for a woman's murder. But as Clary walks "the last mile" to the electric chair, Scott receives evidence that exonerates the condemned man. Realizing that he's made a terrible mistake he tries to stop the execution but is too late. Humbled by his grievous misjudgement, Scott resigns as a prosecutor. Entering private practice, he employs the same cunning that made his reputation and draws the attention of mob kingpin, Frank Garland. The mobster succeeds in bribing Scott into representing one of his stooges on a murder rap and Scott, in a grand display of courtroom theatrics, wins the case. But soon Scott finds himself embroiled in dirty mob politics. The situation becomes intolerable when his former protege in the D.A.'s office is charged with a murder that seems to implicate her as an informant to the Garland mob. Can Victor defend the woman he secretly loves and also keep his life?

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Review :

E.G. Robinson in legal thriller that's better than its parts, thanks to director Lewis Allen

Illegal puts Edward G. Robinson through more perils than Pauline ever suffered. A tenacious District Attorney on his way to the governor's mansion, he resigns when a man he had sent to the electric chair proves innocent. But the civil practice he hopes to undertake goes bust, and he takes to the bottle (a plot development which goes nowhere).

Down and out, he defends a fellow inmate he encounters in a holding cell, and decides to apply his legal acumen to becoming a sharp, high-priced criminal attorney. To get off a guilty client, he grandstands in court by downing a bottle of poison placed in evidence, only to rush off to have his stomach pumped. (This particular ploy was originated by George Brent in 1940's The Man Who Talked Too Much.) He's such a brilliant mouthpiece he comes to the attention of civic crime boss Albert Dekker, whose blandishments he tries to resist.

Meanwhile, back at the D.A.'s office, he's left behind his protégé Nina Foch (looking matronly), whom he had taken under his wing when her father, an old mentor of his, passed away. Though he harbors romantic feelings for her, he gives his blessing when she announces her marriage to a young, ambitious lawyer, Hugh Marlowe. But a series of leaks from the office concerning Dekker's activities brings suspicion on all three. Ultimately, Robinson finds himself defending Foch for murder, during which Jayne Mansfield, Dekker's mistress, sashays to the witness stand in a wasp-waisted black outfit, replete with picture hat.....

The fast and too complicated plot takes a few pointless and baffling turns. Though on the talky side, there's a high quotient of gunplay. Still, it's absorbing. Robinson, still in his early-50s string of B-pictures owing to his guilt-by-association in the wake of the anti-Communist crusade, holds everything together with his bag of old tricks. And credit must go also to director Lewis Allen, who somehow brought a distinctiveness to several of his films which otherwise might have passed unnoticed: Desert Fury, Chicago Deadline, Suddenly. It's hard to point out just how, but he brought some of it to Illegal, too.