Shadow of the Law (1930)

Finally I get another movie with Natalie Moorhead as a main character, and yet she is not in the movie enough, but like always she made the best of what she had. This movie’s only real star is the great William Powell, and you can’t go wrong with him. The basic plot is William Powell is an engineer whose apartment is invaded by a woman (Natalie Moorhead) from an upstairs apartment, who is running away from a drunken man and he tries to protect her and fights the man, who accidentally falls out the window to his death. The man was angry with Natalie because he saw her with William who as the movie starts must have been out together earlier that night. The woman disappears, and she is William’s only witness, and he is sent to jail. He escapes jail and soon becomes the manager of a textile mill. He has been trying to find Natalie so he can be cleared and be set free and not in hiding, and marry the mill owner’s daughter. When he finds Natalie she tries to blackmail him, but of course we get a happy ending. Natalie does a great job in the early scenes, and we are lead to believe she is innocent. But when she is first confronted about coming clean about the accident, you can tell she is lying, the whole thing as a set up. It’s hard to hate her, but she seems to always play a villain, how can you root against this beautiful woman.