A comedy about lynch law-and a smarter talky you'll be hard pressed to find. Hardpressed is what Cary Grant is, as the fugitive Leopold Dilg: the town's outspokenpolitical malcontent, he is framed for the arson of a factory whose owner alsoowns the cops, the judge, and the jury. Dilg finds shelter in the rented home ofa prominent professor of jurisprudence (Ronald Colman), and with landlady JeanArthur endeavors to convince the ivory-tower theorist that the letter of the lawmay not be synonymous with justice. A film that argues for a law that is"engraved in our hearts"-never entrusted to the powers that be-combinesdark passion with light comedy, a near-lynching with borscht humor (literally,with an egg in it). In an oddly endearing ménage à trois, it almostseems the smitten professor would marry the anarchist Dilg if he could. DirectorGeorge Stevens was among the few Hollywood non-Communists to take a publicposition against the blacklist.