This film essentially begins with a vaudeville couple named "Buddy Barton" (Barton Hepburn) and his female partner "Babe Barnes" (Dorothy Gulliver) arriving at a theater to perform a number on stage. At first, they are quite pleased to have garnered a chance to perform at the theater, but when Buddy learns that a man named "Roderick" (Lester Cole) is also performing, his mood quickly changes to one of anger. As it so happens, Buddy is in love with Babe, and he harbors a deep animosity toward Roderick for trying to win Babe's affections. And this information becomes of paramount importance when Buddy is found with a gun in his hand while standing over Roderick's dead body. Needless to say, he is arrested on the spot and not long afterward a jury is formed to hear the case against him. Yet even though the evidence is quite compelling, one lone juror named "Hermann" (Joe E. Brown) refuses to vote to convict in spite of all of the other jurors imploring him to do so--and the longer he continues to hold out the more frustrated they become. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this is one of those films that might only resonate with viewers who really enjoy old-time movies as this clearly requires some allowances to be made for both the picture and audio quality issues. In addition to that, it should also be noted that Joe E. Brown was required to maintain interest by behaving as a clown and performing various stunts and tricks during jury deliberations simply to maintain viewer interest long enough to get to the rather surprising twist at the end. That being said, although this film is quite dated, I suppose it was worth the time spent to watch it, and I have rated it accordingly. Average.
Review of Painted Faces
