Best movies like The Spellbinder
Trapped - Between the Daughter he Loved and the Law He Defied!
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The Spellbinder Starring Lee Tracy, Barbara Read, Patric Knowles, Allan Lane, and more. If you liked The Spellbinder then you may also like: 12 Angry Men, Up for Murder, Woman Against the World, The Nuisance, On Trial and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.
Jed Marlowe is a brilliant, scheming, unscrupulous criminal lawyer whose specialty is defending criminal he knows is guilty but gets them off through loop-holes or bribery. Then his daughter, misled by her father’s courtroom performance, but unaware of his back-room tactics, marries the killer her father has just unjustly save from the electric chair. What’s a poor father to do?
The Spellbinder
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Up for Murder
Young reporter accidentially kills his newspaper's editor in a fight over the publisher's mistress, who is also the paper's society editor.
Woman Against the World
A young woman marries against her father's will, but the happy life she expected turns into a series of tragedies.
The Nuisance
Fast-talker extraordinaire Tracy gives one of his quintessential wiseguy performances as a conniving ambulance chaser who falls in love with Evans, unaware she's a special investigator for a streetcar company he's repeatedly victimized.
The Jury's Secret
A reporter covering a murder trial guesses that the murderer of a ruthless businessman is her ex-fiancé and persuades him to confess and clear the innocent man on trial.
Just Off Broadway
Private detective Michael Shayne is on the case again, but this time he's stuck on a jury for a murder trial. So, what does he do? Why, he skips out on sequestration in order to solve the case himself!
Anatomy of a Murder
Semi-retired Michigan lawyer Paul Biegler takes the case of Army Lt. Manion, who murdered a local innkeeper after his wife claimed that he raped her. Over the course of an extensive trial, Biegler parries with District Attorney Lodwick and out-of-town prosecutor Claude Dancer to set his client free, but his case rests on the victim's mysterious business partner, who's hiding a dark secret.
The Guilty Generation
The children of feuding gangsters fall in love and fight to escape their parents' notoriety.
The Final Hour
A down-and-out lawyer gets back on his feet with help from a singer who later retains him to defend her on a murder charge.
Secrets of a Nurse
This Universal programmer was based on a Collier's Magazine story by journalist Quentin Reynolds. This story in turn was ostensibly based on a true incident, in which a gangster "returned from the dead" to save an innocent young man from the electric chair. The nurse of the film's title is Katharine McDonald, who falls in love with her prizefighter-patient Lee Burke as he recovers from a beating received in a fixed prizefight. Katharine must fend off the advances of criminal attorney John Dodge, another patient who also loves her and becomes jealous of Lee. But when Lee is framed for the murder of his disgruntled manager, Slice, by a henchman of the fight-fix leader, Joe Largo, Dodge takes on his defense and works with Katherine to discover the real killer. Convicted and sentenced to death, Burke is about to walk the "last mile", as Katharine encourages mortally wounded Largo to a deathbed confession.
Gang Bullets
A Capone-like racketeer named Anderson, who after being chased out of one town by the authorities immediately sets up shop in another. Unable to get any tangible evidence against Anderson, DA Wayne orders his assistant Carter to dig up some dirt on the gangster boss. To do this, Carter pretends to turned crooked, joining Anderson's gang in order to accumulate evidence. Alas, Carter's girl friend Patricia knows nothing of her boyfriend's subterfuge, and she suspects the worst.
Who Is Hope Schuyler?
A girl reporter is trying to tack down the lady-in-the-title, as a key witness in a graft trial, which involves three murder and that many failed attempts. A prosecuting attorney in the district attorneys office is aiding her in solving the mystery of the missing lady.
The Women in His Life
An immensely successful criminal lawyer is blindsided when he learns that his new case involves his ex-wife, who left him.
The Man Who Dared
A crusading reporter plans his own arrest and conviction for first degree murder, trying to show that the death sentence should be outlawed when based on circumstantial evidence alone, but his plan goes awry.
Sealed Lips
There's something very odd about Romano, a notorious gangster serving time in the federal pen. For one thing, Romano doesn't sound much like himself. For another, he always seems to be hiding something. Detective Lee suspects that something's amiss, and he's probably right!
Portia on Trial
Lady lawyer Portia Merryman (Frieda Inescourt) defends woebegone Elizabeth Manners (Heather Angel), who is on trial for shooting her lover Earle Condon (Neil Hamilton). Ironically, Portia herself had once had a relationship with Earle Condon, but Earle's father, powerful publisher John Condon (Clarence Kolb), forced them apart. She has a pretty good idea of what is going on in Elizabeth's head, since she herself was on the verge of killing Earle Condon when his father ruthlessly took custody of her illegitimate son. As Portia toils and strains to free her client, she carries on a romance with Dan Foster (Walter Abel) -- the attorney for the prosecution. LA Law and The Practice have nothing on this one!
Criminal Lawyer
A drunken attorney tries to sober up in order to defend a friend in murder case.
Sing Sing Nights
A respected war correspondent is found murdered, with three bullets--from three different guns--in him. Three different men are arrested, convicted and sentenced to death for the murder, but only one can be the actual killer. A criminologist sets out to find who is really guilty.
Laughing at Trouble
A man convicted of murder escapes from jail and hides out in the home of a small town newspaper publisher who has befriended him. She knows who the real killer is.
When G-Men Step In
Having paid for the education and legal training of his younger brother, Bruce, with the idea that he would become a lawyer and join his business, Frederick Garth, a racketeer posing as an honest businessman, is dismayed when he learns that Bruce has become a G-Man instead.
Scarlet Pages
Nora Mason becomes entangled in a family mix-up of murder and scandal that threatens to ruin her career and entire future; Unless the mother she does not know can find a way to save her.
The Zero Hour
A celebrated Broadway actress and a wealthy widowed businessman are brought together through their shared affection for a young orphan.
Perfect Strangers
Romance at a murder trial with a pair of sequestered jurors who are the only ones who think that the woman in the dock is innocent. Separated from their normal lives, jurors Terry Scott and David Campbell start to fall in love.
I Cheated the Law
An attorney (Tom Conway) learns he was duped into being his gangster murder client's (Steve Brodie) alibi.
Lawyer Man
Idealistic attorney Anton Adam makes headlines when he successfully prosecutes a prominent New York racketeer named Gilmurry. Adam's sudden renown attracts the attention of high-profile legal eagle Granville Bentley, who asks Adam to become a partner in his law firm. But Adam's rising career takes a nosedive when he's framed by Gilmurry and a sexy actress in a trumped-up breach of promise suit. The only constant in Adam's life is the loyalty and unrequited love of his secretary Olga.
Counsel for Crime
Otto Kruger once again plays a dynamic, bombastic attorney in Columbia's Counsel for Crime. Kruger plays William Mellon, a shifty shyster whose underhanded methods loses him the love of his sweetheart Anne (Nana Bryant), who subsequently marries a powerful senator (Thurston Hall). What Mellon doesn't know is that Anne has borne him a son, whom the senator has adopted. Reaching adulthood, Paul (Douglass Montgomery) opts for a legal career himself, taking a clerical job with his own father's firm. In typical "B"-picture, Mellon is charged with murdering one of his more odious clients -- and Paul is appointed prosecuting attorney in the case.
Career Woman
A young woman graduates from a New York City law school, returns to her small hometown, and finds her first case is defending a childhood friend accused of murder. Director Lewis Seiler's 1936 courtroom drama stars Claire Trevor, Isabel Jewell, Michael Whalen, Gene Lockhart, Eric Linden, Charles Middleton, Edward Brophy, Kathleen Lockhart, Guinn Williams, El Brendel, Sterling Holloway, Ray Brown, Howard Hickman, Frank McGlynn Sr., Charles Waldron Sr., Spencer Charters and Eily Malyon.
12 Angry Men
During the trial of a man accused of his father's murder, a lone juror takes a stand against the guilty verdict handed down by the others as a result of their preconceptions and prejudices.