The Lady in Question

Columbia's The Lady in Question is a remake of the French Gribouille, a Raimu vehicle from 1939. Brian Aherne plays Andre Morestan, the seeming contently paterfamilias of a bourgeois Parisian family. Summoned for jury duty, Morestan at first believes that accused murderess Natalie Rougin (Rita Hayworth) is guilty, but eventually takes pity on the homeless girl and invites her to live with his family after her acquittal. Things get pretty dicey when Morestan's impressionable young son Pierre (Glenn Ford) falls in love with the enigmatic Natalie and begins committing petty crimes to finance their elopement-leading to a situation not unlike the one that got the girl arrested in the first place! In the original Gribouille, it was abundantly clear that both father and son had a yen for their pretty guest, but this menage a trois has been toned down in the Hollywood version, with Morestan remaining more or less faithful to his long-suffering wife Michelle.