Michael Curtiz's Mountain Justice (1937)

Mountain Justice is one of Curtiz's forgotten pictures.  Deftly photographed by Ernest Haller, it is an entertaining but flawed film.
--Alan K. Rode. Michael Curtiz:  A Life in Film (University Press of Kentucky, 2017)

Michael Curtiz was a skilled director, though more of a craftsman than an artist.  Even his best pictures --Casablanca (1942), Mildred Pierce (1945), The Breaking Point (1950) -- are not always appreciated as his work; I have heard more than one person say how Casablanca is their favorite movie -- usually among the few they know from the classical period -- while having no idea who directed it.  For most of his professional life after he left Hungary in 1926 Curtiz was employed by Warner Brothers and mostly did as he was told by Jack Warner and Hal Wallis, though he always did it well, with the help of the WB reliable professionals. Curtiz turned out movies on time and on budget and was skilled with the camera and with actors, after years of making silent films in Hungary.

There's a growing tendency to see Casablanca as having common themes with Curtiz's other work and Mountain Justice has things in common with many of his films, including ideas of loyalty, independence, freedom and intense criticism of patriarchy. Mountain Justice is one of many gritty films from Warner Brothers in the thirties; it was one of six films that Curtiz directed in 1937 and was, as they said "torn from today's headlines," though I have never quite understood why "based on a true story" is supposed to be an effective marketing phrase.  Mountain Justice (the title being somewhat ironical) tells the story of Edith Maxwell, who was sentenced to twenty-five years in jail for killing her father in self-defense and was eventually pardoned by the governor of Virginia.  Warner Brothers had to make changes in the script in order to avoid litigation but kept most of the harrowing story, as a mountain girl, Ruth Harkins (played by Josephine Hutchinson) decides to study nursing and open a clinic, against the wishes of her church, community and father (her mother encourages her).  A lawyer, Paul Cameron (played by George Brent), comes to town from New York to prosecute Ruth's father for murder and Ruth and Paul fall in love.  Ruth's father tries to whip Ruth and she kills him in self-defense -- under a sign that says "honor thy father and mother" -- is prosecuted and receives a sentence of twenty-five years.  This sentence is deemed insufficient by the mountain people so with the help of Paul and some friends Ruth manages to escape the state with a lynch mob on her heels.  The governor of the state to which she escapes refuses to extradite her.

The film runs a brisk eighty-two minutes and tries to incorporate too many themes, leaving the Ruth/Paul relationship rather perfunctory, along with the issues of rural medical care, abusive treatment of women and mob violence.  Curtiz and cinematographer Ernest Haller do effectively capture the claustrophobia and oppressiveness of an isolated rural town.  Margaret Hamilton and Guy Kibbee play an older couple that serves both as comic relief and a serious example of peope trapped in their environment.