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The Trial of Mary Dugan

Production: Not Available;
Premiere: Not Available;
Released: June 8, 1929;
Production/Distribution Companies: Metro Goldwyn Mayer/Loew's Inc.;
Runtime: 120 min;
Country: USA;
Language: English;
Color: Black and White;
Sound Mix: Mono (Western Electric Sound System);
Not available on VHS or DVD;

Cast: Norma Shearer as Mary Dugan; Lewis Stone as Edward West; H. B. Warner as District Attorney Galway; Raymond Hackett as Jimmy Dugan; Lilyan Tashman as Dagmar Lorne; Olive Tell as Mrs. Edgar Rice; Adrienne D'Ambricourt as Marie Ducrot; De Witt Jennings as Police Inspector Hunt; Wilfred North as Judge Nash; Landers Stevens as Dr. Welcome; Mary Doran as Pauline Agguerro; Westcott B. Clarke as Police Captain Price; Charles Moore as James Madison; Claud Allister as Henry Plaisted; Myra Hampton as May Harris;

Production Credits:
Produced by: Irving Thalberg;
Directed by: Bayard Veiller; James Grant Forbes;
Writers: Becky Gardiner; Bayard Veiller;
Gowns by: Adrian;
Editing: Blanche Sewell;

Reviews:

“This film sustained the interest of the audience, even those who had witnessed Al Woods’ clever stage production, and Miss Shearer gives a performance in which she reveals herself quite able to meet the requirements of that temperamental device-the microphone.”
Mordaunt Hall in the New York Times, August 12, 1929

“Norma Shearer, the waxy, ephemeral beauty of a score of light romances of the screen, invests Bayard Veiller’s skillful lines with a tragic power that frankly astounded this observer. No cheap histrionics for her-no spurious assumption of virtue. All in all, we are prepared to say The Trial of Mary Dugan is the best talking picture so far made. Perhaps next week there will be a better one, at the rate they’re going out, but right now the best extant, and we felicitate Miss Shearer, Mr. Veiller and the MGM company, and vote them the diamond studded microphone with platinum trimmings.”
A.M. Sherwood Jr. in Outlook, April 17, 1929

“Norma Shearer is the young woman known as Mona Tree who has been loved often and has loved but once. It is the same Shearer we have been seeing on the silent screen. She wisely economizes on words in her debut and she takes for herself a role, at the same time, that limits her use of gowns and jewels of splendor. Shearer works hard in her role and she is determined to put it across.”
Douglas Hodges in the Exhibitor’s Herald, April 27, 1929

“For Norma Shearer the picture is a vindication and a triumph, the former because it validates her claim to stardom in the minds of some of us for the first time, and the latter because in her first talking picture she skillfully combines both the technique of both stage and screen and emerges as a definitely compelling actress of greater individuality than she ever revealed in silent pictures.

Miss Shearer’s voice is an extremely natural rather than an elocutionary one, yet it is as expressive as if it had been cultivated to the last degree. From now one she must be recognized as a leader on the audible screen, whose pictures will be awaited with keenest interest.”
Norbert Lusk in the Los Angeles Times, April 7, 1929

“Norma Shearer is the first lady of the talkies. She proves it in The Trial of Mary Dugan. With no stage training to give her confidence, Miss Shearer steps quietly into a most difficult role and she handles it like a veteran. Her poise, her voice, her artistry eclipse many actors of long standing. She is truly superb.”
Delight Evans in Screenland, June 1929