A movie about jewel thieves instantly conjures up glamour and suspense, but a prehistoric entry in the genre, 1932's "The Reckoning", delivers the opposite. It's difficult to imagine a more boring, static and uninteresting movie that unfolds like a stage play -one that folded during out-of-town tryouts.
Sally Blane is the winsome heroine, perhaps the only reason for smaling this clunker. Right from the outset she's fatalistic, as her boyfriend, a stolid performance by James Murry, is destined for prison. It's only a matter of time, and time moves very slowly in this film.
The doomed lovers' story is completely uninteresting, shifting the movie's focus to a villain (Edmund Breese) versus a cop (Tom Jackson). Both of them are cynical, sarcastic and surprisingly inert. It's as if the director went to film school but played hooky during any courses about editing, action, or anything slightly cinematic. Right up through the sudden climax, it's difficult to avoid dozing off.