The Unguarded Hour

Did Samuel Metford push his wife from Dover Cliff? Lady Helen Dearden saw the Metfords there and knows the woman's death was an accident. If she testifies in court, an innocent man avoids the gallows. Yet one thing will die if she testifies -- her barrister husband's career. Lady Helen had secretly gone to Dover to pay off the blackmailer who possessed letters linking her husband romantically to a married woman. Her trust in her spouse is further tested when he is later accused of killing the woman addressed in the letters. Did Lady Helen wed a murderer? Twists abound in this luminous whodunit featuring Loretta Young and Franchot Tone as the sophisticated, increasingly disquieted Deardens. Roland Young adds wit as the Deardens' friend. And little-known Henry Daniell excels as the blackmailer. "[His] performance qualifies him as another of the screen's more interesting villains." - Frank S. Nugent, The New York Times