Accusee - Levez Vous on AllMovie

Veteran filmmaker Maurice Tourneur made his talking-picture bow with 1930's Accusee - Levez Vous (Accused - Stand Up) The story opens during rehearsals of a Parisian musical revue. The star, a fading actress hoping for a comeback, inaugurates a romance with the male half of a knife-throwing act. The man's female partner, overhearing the cooing couple, vows revenge on the actress. Sure enough, the star is killed onstage in the midst of a comedy sketch, with a knife sticking in her back. But is the "obviously" guilty party really the killer? And why was a gunshot heard at the moment the star fell dead? Perhaps the accused woman's defense attorney has the answer when he calls upon the theater's janitor to testify... Reviewers in 1930 cited the resemblances between Accusee-Levez Vous and the early Norma Shearer talker The Trial of Mary Dugan, though the French film was based on a novel by Jean Jose Frappa.