Within the law

In Gilder’s large department store in the jewelry department, one of the saleswomen steals jewelry that her colleague had blithely left from the counter and plans to hide them in her locker room locker. At that moment, the security department head McGuire (Cliff Clark) enters the locker room with a search, and the girl throws jewelry into the first locker that comes across, which belongs to 22-year-old saleswoman Mary Turner ( Ruth Hussey ). Having discovered the stolen jewelry, McGuire delivers Mary to the store owner, dry and tough Mr. Gilder ( Samuel S. Hinds ), who refuses to listen to her explanations, transferring the case to court. Since his son Richard ( Tom Neal ) is fond of aviation and pilots airplanes himself, Gilder decides to appoint him the head of a new department that will sell airplanes.

The judge offers Mr. Gilder to bail Mary, and when he refuses - he sentenced the girl for the theft to three years in prison. Before Mary is gone, she promises Gilder to avenge that he destroys her life. In prison, Mary meets Agnes ( Rita Johnson ), a fun and sociable professional criminal who is serving another term for blackmail. Agness helps Mary adapt to her new environment, and soon they become friends. There, Mary enters the library, but contrary to the librarian’s recommendation to read Gone with the Wind , Mary begins to study books on jurisprudence . Before Agnes leaves prison, Mary gives her some advice on how to deal with blackmail, while remaining within the law.

Some time later, when Mary goes free, Agnes brings her to the apartment, where he introduces members of her gang - ringleader Joe Garzon ( Paul Kelly ), Red ( James Burke ), Eddie Morton ( Paul Cavan ) and his girlfriend June ( Lynn Carver ) Mary tells her friend that she has become wiser, more adult and tougher. When the bandits are planning another business, hoping to quickly get 10 thousand dollars, Mary offers them the option of how to crank out the same blackmail using holes in the law and legal tricks.

On Friday night, before the closure of the store, Agnes, under the guise of a rich lady, buys a fur coat for $ 2,000 in a Gilder department store, paying by check, and asks to deliver the fur coat to the expensive hotel where she lives. After Agnes is discharged from the hotel and leaves in an unknown direction an hour after receiving the fur coat, Makugair reports to Gilder about his suspicion that the fraudster could have stolen the fur coat by paying for it with a fake check. Agnes is soon found and sent to prison with the help of the police, but on Monday the bank accepts the check for payment, and Agnes is released. At a meeting with representatives of the department store, she promises to sue him and make a scandal, and to save the reputation of the department store, Gilder offers her to cover her material and moral costs in the amount of 20 thousand dollars.

Some time later, Mary, collecting information on Richard, under the guise of a wealthy client, enters his flight club supposedly to learn how to fly on her own plane. Within three weeks, Mary treats Richard, and the gang members begin to worry if love has arisen between them. When the sergeant Cassidy ( William Gargan ) visits the gang in order to obtain a refund for one of the old crimes, Mary presents him with a warrant issued by the judge forbidding him to conduct any activities on that case. After his departure, Mary explains to Joe that she is working with Richard to get his father to pay for everything he did to her.

After a month of meetings, Richard invites Mary to a social gathering in a family mansion, where they kiss during a romantic evening. Richard's worried father instructs McGuire and Cassidy to find out everything about Mary. Soon, Richard tells his father that he and Mary were married. Demarest lawyer ( Sidney Blackmer ) states that the marriage will be annulled due to the fact that Richard joined him, not knowing that his bride is a thief and a criminal. Mary confirms that Mr. Gilder put her in jail for theft, depriving her of an honest name, and now she has married her son out of revenge and will bear his last name. Richard, in turn, declares that he married Mary honestly and for love, and therefore sees no reason to annul the marriage. After the young couple leaves, Gilder instructs Demarest and McGuire to take steps to rid Mary of their family.

First of all, Gilder's henchmen succeeds in temporarily blocking the bank accounts of all members of Joe's gang, as a result of which they begin to urgently need cash. Meanwhile, Robert comes to Mary at the moment when she writes an article in the magazine about how Gilder put her in jail and broke her life. Robert tries to dissuade her, stating that with her desire to take revenge, she only makes herself worse, but she does not listen to him. When Mary declares that they are no longer married, Robert runs away, and Mary confesses to Agnes that she loves Robert. Eddie invites Joe and Red to rob Gilder’s house, without involving Mary. He says that Gilder hangs a Rembrandt painting worth 200 thousand dollars in his living room, and he has an art dealer ( Claude King ) who is ready to buy this painting. Phoned with an art dealer, Joe asks him to prepare money for tomorrow morning, and at night three men suggest going to work.

In the evening, an agitated June arrives at Mary and Agnes, who reports that Eddie, Joe, and Red are off to rob Gilder’s house. Realizing that this is a deadly adventure, Mary rushes to stop them, after which June secretly calls McGuire, saying that she did everything as he requested. Having penetrated into the living room of Gilder, Joe and his accomplices are trying to remove the picture from the wall, but at that moment Mary appears with a demand to stop. Suddenly, Robert comes to the noise, asking the bandits to turn their pockets out and leave the house. Robert is surprised to see Mary, because he received a telegram from her from Chicago with an invitation to come. Mary guesses that someone wanted to set her up for this crime, and make it so that Robert was not around. Robert states that a copy of the painting is hanging on the wall, which costs nothing, after which the bandits understand that Eddie intentionally wanted to substitute them in this matter. Joe takes out a gun and kills Eddie, after which the police rush to the house with the noise of a shot. Robert shows Joe and Red how to escape through the roof, while he remains in the room with Mary. During the chase, the police seriously injured Red, but Joe manages to escape. Inspector Cassidy Mary reports that it was Robert who shot Eddie while defending his home and gives the inspector the weapons that he had previously taken from Joe. However, Robert does not mind her words. Red dies in the hospital without telling the police anything.

Soon they detain Joe, whom the inspector asks to confirm the version that Mary organized a robbery in revenge for Gilder. However, Joe claims that he shot Eddie, and Mary had nothing to do with the robbery. After Robert and Mary leave the police station, he states that he was always sure that she did not steal jewelry from the store. He even hired a detective who found a real thief, and she admitted everything. Gilder Sr. finds the strength to ask Mary for forgiveness, after which Mary and Richard leave to start a new life together.

The film is based on the play of the American playwright Bayard Weiller , which in 1912-13 successfully went on Broadway , withstanding 541 performances ^[1] . As the movie historian Richard Harland Smith noted, even before 1940 at least five films were created on the basis of the performance. In 1916, an Australian silent film was released, followed in 1917 by an American film adaptation of Vitagraph . In 1924, producer Joseph Schenck made another silent film with his wife, Norm Tolmage, in the title role, and finally, in 1930, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer made a sound picture called “ Paid, ” where Joan Crawford played the role of Mary Turner ^{[ 2] [3]} .

As for the cinema, the 1939 film became "the fourth and final film version of the play by Bayard Weiller" ^[4] . In addition, according to the American Institute of Motion Picture Arts , in 1935 the radio play “Within the Law” was also staged, and Joan Crawford again played the main role in it. And, finally, in 1952, a television play was released under the same name with Lola Montes and Orson Bean in the lead roles ^[3] . According to Smith, the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio “seemed to specialize in the film adaptations of Weiler’s successful Broadway plays,” including the thirteen detective “ Thirteenth Chair ” (1937) and later the judicial melodrama “ Mary Dagen Process ” (1941) ^[2] .

According to the website of the American Film Institute, “director Gustav Mahaty is probably best known for staging the Czechoslovak films Eroticon (1929) and Ecstasy (1933), the last of which was played by 18-year-old Hadie Lamarr (the film became famous before all thanks to the fleeting naked scene with her participation). After moving to the USA, Mahaty directed the short film “The Wrong Way” (1938) for MGM , after which he was entrusted with the work on this film, which was the first of two full-length films that he directed in the USA as a director. In 1945, Mahati staged the film noir “ Jealousy ” (1945) at the Republic studio, and then returned to Europe ^{[3] [2]} .

As the film historian Hans Wollstein wrote, “the production of the film was hindered by problems with the selection of actors.” In particular, “ Tom Neil became the third candidate for the role of a rather weak protagonist” ^[4] . According to the Hollywood Reporter , Lee Bowman was originally planned for the role of Richard Gilder, then he was replaced by John King , who, in turn, was replaced by Tom Neil ^[3] .

The magazine "Hollywood Reporter" also noted the difficulties with the selection of the actress for the main female role ^[3] . As a result, the choice fell on Ruth Hassi . As Smith wrote, “A former Powers agency model, Ruth Hussey knew nothing about prison life, but one of her film partners ( Paul Kelly ) was already serving time and another ( Tom Neal ) was about to go to jail. Kelly has spent 25 months in San Quentin Prison since 1927 for the murder of her lover's husband, actor Ray Raymond. In 1965, Neil shoots his third wife, after which he will spend six years in prison, where he will die of a heart attack in 1971, six months before his early release ” ^[2] .

As the New York Times film reviewer Frank S. Nugent wrote, “It's nice to note that attractive young actresses like Ruth Hussey are being trained for stardom. This shows an adequate sense of responsibility for the future on the part of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer , which already contains the most expensive group of stars in Hollywood ” ^[5] .

Describing the picture as “a historical melodrama dressed in modern dresses with two or three episodes on the plane,” Nugent paid special attention to the acting. According to the critic, “Miss Hussey and the rest of the actors deserve praise for a competent remake in an era of generally unsuccessful remakes. In the role of an absolutely modern Mary Turner, mistakenly accused of shoplifting, Hassi is beautiful, calm and full of dignity ” ^[5] .

As Wallstein noted, “The film is distinguished by an attractive cast of second-tier actors from MGM , the smooth staging of Czechoslovak immigrant Gustav Mahaty, and the rich and generous look that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer usually has. All this, however, cannot replace the extremely far-fetched and sometimes openly obsolete plot, which had little to do with the life of 1939, not to mention today ” ^[4] .

• Under the law on the IMDb website  
• Under the law on the AllMovie website  
• Under the law on the website of the American Film Institute
• Under the law on Turner Classic Movies