To me, this movie is perfection.

Simply Perfect

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The cast for "Slightly Honorable" has three top male stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood. It also has some top supporting actors and three top supporting actresses of the day. Pat O'Brien is attorney John Webb and Broderick Crawford is his associate, Russ Sampson. Crawford's role is particularly interesting because, while energetic, it isn't as bombastic as his screen persona became in time. Edward Arnold plays their nemesis here in a somewhat muted role. He's a wealthy crime boss, Vincent Cushing.The film is billed as a comedy as well as a crime and drama. Eve Arden provides some of the comedy as Miss Ater, secretary to Webb and Sampson. Ruth Terry is a bubbly young singer at Pete Godena's Riviera Club, Ann Seymour ("Puss" to Webb). She takes to Webb, follows him everywhere, and provides some of the comedy. Claire Dodd, Douglas Dumbrille, Ernest Truex and a host of other actors contribute in this mystery mayhem. Before all is through, two dames are knocked off. The culprit is something of a surprise, but it's a bit hokey how Webb figures it out. The film quality isn't very good. The background music is terrible and very distracting. Fortunately, it only plays during moments of suspense. But, the story is fair and the film has some good action and lots of commotion that contributes to an interesting movie. The film is based on a 1939 crime novel by Frank G. Presnell, "Send Another Coffin."Here are a couple of my favorite lines. George Taylor (Dumbrille), "Who's conducting this inquiry – the police or this ambulance chaser?"Russ Sampson, toasting, "For the people!" John Webb, "For the $100,000 retainer fee."Pete Godena (played by Bernard Nedell), "Let's you and me have a nice little heart-to-heart talk, huh?" Alma Brehmer (Claire Dodd), "What would you use?"

I couldn't sit through the bad jokes, mildly okay acting and boring story - I simply could not finish watching this film. I mean patty-cake?! They were playing patty-cake! Is that suppose to be funny? I mean it's two lame characters that I don't care about so I didn't even enjoy that scene... really if it were characters that I liked I might have, and most likely would have, found humor in it but as it is that great scene had me fed-up with the film.Some people like this film while others of us found it boring, I'm in the latter group. It's far from a must see comedy mystery but I'm sure entertaining for some audiences - I'm just not one of them.If you are super bored one evening and catch this one on it might provide something to watch - it's just not a great watch.2/10

The overriding story of the film - the murder of a well-known party girl (Claire Dodd) whose body is discovered by crusading attorney John Webb (Pat O'Brien) who also happens to be a former boyfriend - and things don't look good for our hero who is instantly murder suspect number one. Furthermore Webb is trying to get the goods on graft king Vincent Cushing (Edward Arnold). Webb thinks Cushing did the murder and set him up to take the fall, and thus spends the rest of the movie trying to clear his name. The movie is well-paced and everything is moving along in an interesting fashion when every few minutes - like interference on a radio channel - in pops Ruth Terry's character and her incessant yammering. She has her eye set on Webb from the moment she sees him although she says she's 18 and he looks old enough to be her father. She lies about her background, so why couldn't she be lying about her age? If Webb were smarter he'd be equally as worried about getting involved in a statutory rape rap as he is murder. What girl of 18 gets dressed up in a revealing gown, goes to a party full of known hoods, and then is shocked when one puts the moves on her? Or doesn't have the sense to NOT take her dress off in front of a grown man when she's alone in his apartment? She's either 13 or she doesn't have all of her marbles.I waste so much time on Terry's character here because it distracts from what could have been a very good film. I took off two stars just for the annoyance factor alone. Other than that - and its a big "that" - the film is a great noir with an interesting twist at the end. Robert Osborne said that director Tay Garnett became ill during filming and Walter Wanger had to finish the film out himself with Garnett very upset at the end result. I can only guess that Mr. Garnett's objections were the same as mine.

Pat O'Brien, to my way of thinking, was always an interesting actor. He was one of that breed of Thirties men who almost blasted self-confidence. He was fast-talking, always ready with a quick comeback and a one-two punch. He was hard to deflate. Think of others such as Chester Morris, Lee Tracy and Lloyd Nolan. O'Brien played up the Irish charm like a poster. Unlike those others, O'Brien made it to the big time in the Thirties. He was great friends with James Cagney and starred with Cagney in nine films. But with opportunities to be a leading man, O'Brien just sucked the air away from anyone else in the room. He was dynamic to a fault, in my view. When he tried to do comedy line reading, he usually came across as emphatic and irritable. When he was playing tough, he could come across as emphatic and unmovable. With Slightly Honorable, a 1940 film directed by Tay Garnett, O'Brien plays John Webb, a strong-willed, fast-talking lawyer who is determined to bring down Victor Cushing (Edward Arnold), the leader of a corrupt political machine, a man responsible for rigging highway construction bids and using shoddy materials. Even the district attorney is part of Cushing's operation. Webb's only helper is his law associate, Russ Sampson (Broderick Crawford). There is the attempted corruption of an 18-year-old singer, two murders by dagger and two attempted murders, and a tense political debate in the state capitol where we learn how much pressure it takes to crumble second-rate concrete. There's even a climactic scene at night in a foggy, isolated cemetery, with old tombstones being read by flashlight and a thrown dagger coming very close to permanently ending Webb's law practice. And this is a comedy...or, at least, an attempt at a comedy mystery. The background music is jaunty. The repartee is quick and sometimes witty (and sometimes awful: "Well," says Webb, "it looks like the good old frameroo."); the 18-year-old lamb chop is cute, ditzy and dumb; there's a souse on a barroom floor and a black elevator attendant who roles his eyes and does shuffle steps. Eve Arden even shows up as Miss Ater, Webb's ironic secretary. The result teeters close to being a mess, but a fast-moving one. O'Brien, with his high- energy line delivery and no nonsense style, dominates the proceedings. Even Edward Arnold, smooth, avuncular and good-humored as Mr. Big, isn't able to steal any scenes from O'Brien. Ruth Terry as Ann Seymour, the young singer who wants to be John Webb's girl friend, is fine delivering a song and dance, but doing young and ditzy she sounds like a motor mouth Shirley Temple on amphetamines. She survives the plot and manages to win Webb, but after a while I started hoping she'd be one of the victims. Broderick Crawford does a fine job as Webb's partner, younger, not as sharp but ready to stand up and be counted. There are two problems with Slightly Honorable. The first is that as a leading man Pat O'Brien can get tiresome. The second is that Tay Garnett couldn't make up his mind whether he was directing a comedy or a crime drama. The movie is often fun to watch but it keeps veering from one style to the other. It's hard to believe that a few years later Garnett would direct one of the most satisfying, well-made and depressing crime noirs ever filmed, The Postman Always Rings