Screen Directors Playhouse: Cry Justice (1956)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
An interesting story never fully comes to life in this entry in the Screen Directors Playhouse series. Lawyer Gil Foster (Macdonald Carey) is accused of killing his ex-partner (Dick Haymes) and sentenced to ten years in prison. After he's released he sets out for revenge because he knows that the partner staged the entire thing to ruin his life. George Sherman directs this entry, which mixes the Western genre with various mystery elements. The end result isn't too bad but at the same time one wishes that the screenplay had a little more work done to it because the revenge tale is just too predictable to really work. The first fifteen-minutes of the film deals with the set-up of the crime and I'm not sure if it was their intent or not but there's very little drama because every twist and turn is pretty much seen coming from a mile away. Once the second half of the film starts it too follows the same path that you'd expect it to. The story is fairly interesting but it's just way too routine to really work. With that said, the film at least remains entertaining due to some nice direction and performances. I thought Carey was pretty good in the lead role because he does a lot of acting with just facial gestures. This here actually helps the film and I enjoyed his laid back approach. Haymes is also very good as the snake and especially in the early scene where he gets drunk and spills his hatred for his friend. James Dunn is good as the sheriff and June Vincent does a nice job as the bride. Even though the story never really comes to life there's still enough here to make it worth viewing and especially the ending.