I’m a sucker for a snappy title. They’re my specialty as a blogger: I’ve built many posts around snappy titles. The Man Who Talked Too Much is a simultaneously snappy and swell title.

The movie is a courtroom drama; it’s not about Donald Trump’s big fat bazoo although I may recycle it at some point for a political post. Stay tuned.

I’m also a sucker for short and snappy movies. The Man Who Talked Too Much is 76 minutes long but packs a lot of story into such a short time frame.

The pacing is classic Warner Brothers circa 1940: Breakneck. It stars George Brent who’s best known as one of Bette Davis’ favorite leading men. He plays Stephen Forbes who begins the movie as a righteous prosecutor, morphs into a sleazy mob lawyer, and regains his decency at the end. His secretary played by Virginia Bruce and kid brother William Lundigan scare Brent straight or some such shit.

The featured image is of a defendant who Brent sent to the electric chair in the first reel. His claims of innocence turn out to be true, but they’re vindicated too late. His execution leads to Brent’s resignation and turn to defense lawyering.

In an unrealistic move, Brent leaves his unnamed home town and goes to New York City to hang up his proverbial shingle. Scratch a defense lawyer and they’re a former prosecutor. They don’t move, instead they practice in the jurisdiction where they’re known. This plot twist was likely done so they could use the NYC sets on the Warners backlot.

The movie is full of small mistakes about legal procedure but the story and the acting win the day. One thing the movie gets right is that people hate paying their lawyers. Brent is broke until he wins a case by knocking out my countryman George Tobias in court. I am not making this up. After this smashing triumph, the mob comes calling in the person of former silent movie star Richard Barthelmess who hires Brent to be his mouthpiece.

Success goes to Brent’s head, and it nearly kills him. This feature is called pulp fiction, not pulp spoilers so that’s all the plot I’m willing to share.

Brent is terrific as the witty and sarcastic lawyer. Virginia Bruce excels as the woman who loves him. Brent, however, is clueless about her feelings for him. An odd thing for a leading man. What can ya do?

The Man Who Talked Too Much was directed by Vincent Sherman with cinematography by Sid Hickox. They made this semi low budget film look like an A picture when it was at best a B+ flick. Did it open for a Davis-Brent opus? Beats the hell outta me.

The script was written by Walter DeLeon and Earl Baldwin and based on the play The Mouthpiece by Frank J. Collins. It was made into movies before and after The Man Who Talked Too Much.  I’ll get to that later.

Grading Time: The Man Who Talked Too Much is perhaps the most obscure movie I’ve written about for this feature, but it’s certainly not the worst. In fact, it’s a cracking entertainment that I give 3 stars and an Adrastos grade of B.

It’s poster time. Here’s a solo long sheet.

I couldn’t find any international posters. There *was* a world war going on. That didn’t prevent this quad from happening:

I mentioned other versions of the story. They were produced in 1932 and 1955 respectively:

Now that we’re feeling like illegal mouthpieces, let’s all go to the lobby to get something to wash the bitter taste out of our mouths.

That Coke Zero hit the spot. Apologies for the product placement. There’s nothing in it for me except a look at some lobby cards.

One problem with choosing an obscure movie is that neither trailer nor any clips are online. Instead, the last word goes to the whole damn movie:

Why don’t I do that more often? Things on YouTube have a way of vanishing and the quality is often shitty. That’s why.