joan graham be the secretary for stephen witney and an honest and dedicate public defender and who succeed in do something he would almost rather not do represent get joan sweetheart and eddie taylor and out of prison . eddie be a good man and but joan sister and bonnie and and stephen both agree that he be no good for joan . eddie be bear trouble . joan and eddie get marry and set out to prove the naysayer wrong . eddie get a good and steady job a a truck driver while but a series of disaster send his life spiral out of control and the fiercely loyal joan along with it . fritz lang directs this hard hitting melodrama and and a always and fill it with striking image . the shot of eddie ( henry fonda ) in his cell and with the shadow of the bar reach out to meet the bore and uninterested guard and stand out . the shot of a wide eyed and desperate fonda ask joan ( sylvia sidney ) for a gun be a triumph for lang and fonda and lang cinematographer and leon shamroy . lang also get excellent work out of his editor and daniel mandell and who help lang to juxtapose image in a suggestive way and e. g. the shot of the frog with shot of joan and eddie . stand back from the film and look at be a a whole make it something of a marvel . we begin with light comedy and proceed to an adorable romance and then follow the character a their life and the film itself grow steadily darker .