THE UNKNOWN MAN: anguish 101 for actors

Walter Pidgeon was just starting the slow inevitable slide from leading man status when he made THE UNKNOWN MAN for longtime employers MGM in 1951.
He'd reached the peak of his fame nine years earlier as Mr Miniver to Greer Garson's "Mrs Miniver" but he'd been around since the mid 1920s, working with most of the big names at Metro Goldwyn Mayer, usually as the solid, often stolid reliable, husband type. He occasionally got an action part but mostly he exuded dull dependable integrity.
Imagine a large piece of oak, tall and erect, carved with craggy features and endowed with a beautiful baritone voice and you've got Walter Pidgeon.

The part of business attorney Dwight Bradley Masen in THE UNKNOWN MAN was therefore tailor-made for him. Masen's built a comfortable life for himself on the earnings from his law practice. He knows all the right people and has a reputation for idolising the law. He's thoroughly decent and so dull that he blends in with the solid wood furniture lining his office.
Then he takes on a criminal case, defending a young man (Keefe Brasselle) accused of murder. Masen wins on his first time out in court but afterwards learns that his client was probably guilty. What is Mr Live-by-the-law to do? The young man can't be tried again, but neither can Masen let him get away with it.
To articulate his dilemma Pidgeon digs deep into his memory to recall whatever acting lessons he may have taken as a young man and the result is Anguish 101 for Actors.
Masen paces the floor, up and down, up and down, lapping at the speed of an Olympic race walker as his mind turns over the problem "what to do, what to do." He spins so sharply each time he reaches the edge of the carpet that I fear he might fall over but he continues pacing, oblivious to any dizziness caused by the sudden 180 degree change in direction.
Often when he paces he wrings his hands at the same time, just to make sure we fully comprehend the depth of his anguish.
In those brief moments when he comes to rest he stops wringing his hands for long enough to hold his head with them, almost perceptibly squeezing his skull as if to try and force out a solution.
And let's not forget the copious dabbing of his sweaty brow with a neatly folded handkerchief while preparing to betray the moral foundation of his very being with a carefully considered but hesitantly spoken falsehood.
Believe me, Method Actors have nothing on Walter Pidgeon.
To be fair, his acting's no better or worse than the story, which is nothing more than a B crime movie tinged with a thin patina of MGM gloss.
Masen's unnamed hometown is big, progressive and successful yet has just one judge, one courtroom and a DA who has to investigate and prosecute cases all on his own. The mysterious Mr Big of organised crime is played by an actor who looks so weird (in the immaculate world of Hollywood strange looking characters were rarely good or normal) and makes such a feeble attempt at not being Mr Big that the only real mystery is how Masen failed to realise his friend's true identity ten years earlier.
THE UNKNOWN MAN is the kind of film that TCM schedules for a time of day when the only alternatives are infommercials for Miraclesponges, and no-one with a pulse is watching anyway. 
I've got a pulse but I already own three Miraclesponges.