Schwurgericht der Toten

This tepid and lacklustre British movie is largely forgotten and deservedly so.It wholly lacks merit.

The story gets underway when a man ,wrongly condemned for murder and sentenced to death ,curses the judge ,jury and prosecuting counsel from the courtroom before being lead away .Soon afterwards the foreman of the jury dies in a road accident and the condemned man perishes of a heart attack before sentence can be carried out .The judge's daughter is not convinced of the man's guilt and delves into the case with the aid the brother of the murdered woman and her own brother ,a dissolute journalist .

The performances -apart from Michael Horden as the judge -are lightweight and stodgy ,with the ultra genteel vocal tones of early fifties British cinema predominating .The monochrome photography is dull and the story frankly dull Poor and best left to gather dust except as an example of the kind of low budget "quota quickie" made in response to legislation requiring a certain percentage of movies shown in UK cinemas to be British made and that resulted in much dross -like this -getting made