70,000 Witnesses (1932) DVD-R

Starring Phillips Holmes, Dorothy Jordan, Charles Ruggles, Johnny Mack
Brown, J. Farrell MacDonald
Directed by Ralph Murphy

Print: black/white
Runtime: 69 min.
Genre: mystery
Print Quality: B

This "gimmick" murder mystery begins during a crucial college football
game. Wally Clark (Johnny Mack Brown), the team's star player, is killed
just before making the winning touchdown, as the titular 70,000 witnesses
look on. Wally's teammate Buck Buchanan (Phillips Holmes), the younger
brother of gambler Slip Buchanan (Lew Cody), had previously refused to
drug Wally at Slip's bequest. Even so, when Wally drops dead, the leading
suspect is poor Buck. It's up to bibulous reporter Johnny Moran (Charles
Ruggles) and Wally's sister Dorothy Clark (Dorothy Jordan) to save Buck
before local detective Dan McKenna (David Landau) railroads the boy into
the electric chair.