The Man Who Wouldn't Talk (1940)

The Man Who Wouldn't Talk is a 1940 mystery film directed by David Burton and starring Lloyd Nolan, Jean Rogers and Richard Clarke. It is a remake of the 1929 film The Valiant which had starred Paul Muni, and based on a play of that same name. It was Nolan's first film for Twentieth Century Fox, where he went on to be a successful star of B Movie mysteries such as the Michael Shayne series. Nolan's portrayal of the lead character was deliberately more subdued than Muni's had been and the film was "opened up" with the addition of flashback scenes and other devices to make it less dialogue-based than the original.

Synopsis

A man shoots dead a business leader and confesses to the killing, but refuses to say anything more than providing the name Joe Monday which is obviously an alias. His attorney joins forces with a woman claiming that she is sister and that he is really, a soldier reported missing during World War I. Still the accused refuses to offer further information. He is tried for murder with the case seemingly hanging on events from over twenty years earlier when the dead man and the accused had served in the same infantry company in France.

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