The Tattered Dress (1957)

Set in a California resort community, when a rich man (Phillip Reed) man kills a bartender (Floyd Simmons) for attacking his wife (Elaine Stewart), he hires a prominent attorney (Jeff Chandler) known for doing anything to win a case. But the small town sheriff (Jack Carson), who was a mentor to the murdered man, has his own plan to insure the New York attorney doesn't win his case. Directed by Jack Arnold (INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN), this lurid potboiler (and I don't mean that in a derogatory sense) takes a risk in placing an ego driven shyster defending guilty clients at the core of its story. In fact, outside of the lawyer's wife (Jeanne Crain), everyone in the story is either repellent or unpleasant. I enjoyed it although the movie has some extraneous minor characters like a journalist (Edward Platt) and a nightclub comic (George Tobias) that add nothing to the narrative and just take up space. Despite its A cast, it's a B movie. The B&W CinemaScope lensing is by Carl E. Guthrie (CAGED). With Gail Russell (alas, her beauty already destroyed by her alcoholism), Edward Andrews and Ziva Rodann.