Watch Defenders of the Law For Free

Please don't spend money on this.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Blistering performances.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

I think John Springer once commented that there may have been a good reason for John Gilbert's laughable performance in "His Glorious Night" - his leading lady was Catherine Dale Owen, a particularly wooden actress. After seeing her in "Behind Office Doors" playing a snooty society type, I think she was pretty terrible. Critics tended to play up her beauty and charms but obviously those attributes couldn't replace talent and "Defenders of the Law" was mercifully her last film.The novelty with this oldie is that instead of New York it is Los Angeles that the gangsters are desperate to take over. When police captain Bill Houston (John Holland, a Lloyd Hughes lookalike) has a conversation with a constable's little boy who is eager to be a racketeer when he grows up, he is more than keen to be the one to bring in notorious gangster Joe Velet. The little boy was just echoing the sentiments of the man in the street, who in a 1930 poll listed "movie star" and "gangster" as the two occupations he aspired to. So there was a crackdown soon after on films that tried to glorify hoodlums and a scene in this film was obviously cut. When Bill meets Velet he is surprised to find he knows him as Joe, his comrade from the war. This film could have been a valiant attempt to show why Joe took the wrong road - there are some glimpses, a scene in the trenches. Another when Dale Owens as Alice is speaking about the "cowardly" Velet, Houston then chimes in with "well, believe it or not..." obviously about to explain Velet's past when it cuts to Alice again with her "bad man" rant. Yet again when one of the gang members question Velet's motives, he mutters something about the war but at only an hour every interesting or thoughtful speech is out and "good cops, bad gangsters" are in. Interesting what might have been.Catherine Dale Owens may not have won any acting awards but Mae Busch's role as an undercover police woman posing as a rival gangsters moll was intriguing. Unlike Owen, Busch, in films from the early days in the pie throwing Sennett comedies, definitely knew how to act naturally in the talkies. The big climatic scene involved the kidnapping of Houston's fiancée, Alice. Velet has killed his rival, Teroni, after realising that Teroni's girl is a policewoman who has relayed back to headquarters the secret plans of the gang so the police can capture them. Another interesting thing about this film's striving for authenticity is how real the gang members looked. There were several shots of them rounding on a comic photographer (Al Cooke) and they looked as though they had just stepped out of the city's mean streets.Paul Panzer, once the menacing villain from Pearl White's "The Perils of Pauline", now, just as much at ease playing fawning gangster Teroni. This was a movie that could have been much more than it was - just a bottom of the bill police yarn.

"Defenders of the Law" (1931) is often astutely directed and it certainly has its moments. Admittedly, the comedy relief played by Al Cooke's inept photographer often strikes a jarring note of slapstick, but the main plot is cleverly scripted and often forcefully directed. John Holland gives the performance of his career as Police Captain Bill Houston, while top-billed Edmund Breese actually has a small role as the Police Commissioner, who is also the heroine's father, would you believe? The heroine is played by Catherine Dale Owen, while Mae Busch has a blink-and-you'll-miss-her role as a policewoman in disguise. The script provides us with an interesting premise, pitting an honest police captain, Holland, against a totally ruthless gangster who once saved his life! Now that is a neat switch! The gangster is supplied with top dialogue and is very charismatically played by Robert Gleckler. For the most part, this movie is well acted, involvingly directed and produced on a top Poverty Row scale.