Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Illegal Starring Edward G. Robinson

This 1955 crime film starring one of my favorite actors of the gritty genre, Edward G. Robinson, is an entertaining, watchable movie. Nina Foch, Jayne Mansfield (she does a good job in a serious role as a minor character), and Edward Platt (later the Chief on the TV sitcom Get Smart) also star in it. EGR plays a go-for-the-throat DA who mistakenly sends an innocent man to the gas chamber. He resigns his office in disgrace and decides to switch tables and become a sharpie defense attorney. The problem is EGR continues to use his sometimes questionably ethical tactics to win his cases, and this gets him in trouble with the local crime bosses. An interesting aside, EGR eloquently comments on his own art collection that he lent for the movie's set. The House Un-American Activities Committee hounding EGR forced him to star in the lesser movie roles such as this one. Nevertheless, he is always a real pro and gives this movie some style and depth. I saw it on the DVD sold by Warner Brothers.