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The Man Who Talked Too Much
The Man Who Talked Too Much
	Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Vincent Sherman
Screenplay by	Walter DeLeon; Earl Baldwin ; Tom Reed
Based on	The Mouthpiece; 1929 play; by Frank J. Collins
Produced by	Bryan Foy
Starring	George Brent; Virginia Bruce; Brenda Marshall; Richard Barthelmess; William Lundigan; George Tobias; John Litel
Cinematography	Sidney Hickox
Edited by	Thomas Pratt
Music by	Heinz Roemheld
Production; company	Warner Bros.
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date	July 16, 1940;
Running time	76 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

The Man Who Talked Too Much is a 1940 American drama film directed by Vincent Sherman and written by Walter DeLeon and Earl Baldwin. Starring George Brent, Virginia Bruce, Brenda Marshall, Richard Barthelmess, William Lundigan, George Tobias and John Litel, the film was released by Warner Bros. on July 16, 1940.^[1]

The Man Who Talked Too Much is the second of three films adapted from the 1929 play The Mouthpiece by Frank J. Collins, in which a former prosecutor, disillusioned by sending an innocent man to the electric chair, takes the saying "Better that a hundred guilty men go free than one innocent man suffer the death penalty" one step further by becoming a defense attorney for gangsters and adroitly tightrope walking legal ethics. Collins based his protagonist on Manhattan defense attorney William Joseph Fallon, dubbed "The Great Mouthpiece" in the New York press, who had a short but spectacularly successful career before succumbing to the effects of his own dissoluteness at the age of 41.^[2]

Plot

Steve Forbes prosecutes a case so convincingly, an innocent man ends up sentenced to die in the electric chair. He quits the district attorney's office and opens a private practice, resulting in racketeer J.B. Roscoe becoming a client.

The money he makes allows Steve to put younger brother Johnny through law school. After a while, Joan Reed, his secretary, and Johnny both become appalled by how unethical Steve has become in his profession. Johnny informs on Roscoe, after which the gangster frames him for a murder. Unable to save him in court, Steve works desperately to prove Johnny's innocence before his brother's execution.

Cast

George Brent as Stephen M. Forbes
Virginia Bruce as Joan Reed
Brenda Marshall as Celia Farrady
Richard Barthelmess as J.B. Roscoe
William Lundigan as John L. Forbes
George Tobias as Slug 'Canvasback' McNutt
John Litel as District Attorney Dickson
Henry Armetta as Tony Spirella
Alan Baxter as Joe Garland
David Bruce as Gerald Wilson
Clarence Kolb as E.A. Smith
Louis Jean Heydt as Barton
Marc Lawrence as Lefty Kyler
Edwin Stanley as District Attorney Nelson
Kay Sutton as Mrs. Knight
Elliott Sullivan as Bill
Dick Rich as Pete
Phyllis Hamilton as Myrtle
John Ridgely as Brooks
William Forrest as Federal District Attorney Green
Maris Wrixon as Roscoe's Secretary
Margaret Hayes as Governor's Secretary

Reception

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times said, "Garrulity is a social evil which very few people can abide, and the truth of the matter is that The Man Who Talked Too Much talks too much, too. For a straight gangster picture, which should be fast and concise, it is ponderously slow and windy and as transparent as a goldfish bowl. There are two identically suspenseful sequences, at the beginning and at the end, when innocent men linger painfully in the shadow of the electric chair while people rush around madly to save them. And that's about all the suspense there is."^[3]