- Fritz Lang's apparently ironically-named Beyond a Reasonable Doubt features one of the least plausible film noir plots I've encountered. Nominally, the film is about an author named Garrett (Dana Andrews) who, with the help of newspaper publisher Austin Spencer (Sidney Blackmer), plants false evidence to get himself arrested for the murder of a burlesque dancer named Patty Gray. The hope is that the district attorney (Philip Bourneuf) will succeed in landing Garrett on death row, positioning him and Spencer to reveal the horrors of capital punishment. Naturally, the only way to guarantee the success of their plan is to keep it secret from everyone, including Susan Spencer (Joan Fontaine), who is both Garrett's fiancé and Austin Spencer's daughter. I'm sure she won't mind when Garrett starts dating dancer Dolly Moore (Barbara Nichols) for reasons that he just can't discuss.
- As if Garrett and Spencer's plan itself weren't already ridiculous enough, the audience's suspension of disbelief is further strained by an unintentionally funny car accident that kills Austin Spencer while simultaneously destroying all evidence he had collected to prove Garrett's innocence. Suddenly Susan Spencer, Garrett's defense attorney (Shepperd Strudwick), and the local detective (Arthur Franz) all find themselves scrambling to clear Garrett's name despite the fact that none of them really seemed to believe him during the trial. The only thing more absurd would be if Garrett actually had been guilty all along, which of course the film saves for its last-minute big reveal. The acting and direction in Beyond a Reasonable Doubt are both fine, but not enough to earn this preposterous film any clemency.
