June 22, 2022

I found the premiss to this film quite interesting. A journalist is found shot dead. There are three bullets in his body, from three different weapons and - amazingly - there are three people who wish to confess. Off to court they go, all are convinced and sentenced to death row. This causes a public outcry. They can't all have killed him - and so the Governor asks "Prof. Varney" (Ferdinand Gottschalk) to try out his innovative polygraph technolo… read the rest.

I found the premiss to this film quite interesting. A journalist is found shot dead. There are three bullets in his body, from three different weapons and - amazingly - there are three people who wish to confess. Off to court they go, all are convinced and sentenced to death row. This causes a public outcry. They can't all have killed him - and so the Governor asks "Prof. Varney" (Ferdinand Gottschalk) to try out his innovative polygraph technology to try and get to the truth. To that end, he straps each man into his machine and they regale us all with a short story explaining their relationship with this man, and offering us a motive. Sadly, though the plot itself is quite good, the production and acting are really basic. The theory of the criminology is promising, but the explanations are threadbare before a denouement that was sadly disappointing. Pity - a few more dollars on a better cast with some more creative writing and we could have had a clever little intrigue here.

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