This Universal programmer was based on a Collier's Magazine story by journalist Quentin Reynolds. This story in turn was ostensibly based on a true incident, in which a gangster "returned from the dead" to save an innocent young man from the electric chair. The nurse of the film's title is Katharine McDonald, who falls in love with her prizefighter-patient Lee Burke as he recovers from a beating received in a fixed prizefight. Katharine must fend off the advances of criminal attorney John Dodge, another patient who also loves her and becomes jealous of Lee. But when Lee is framed for the murder of his disgruntled manager, Slice, by a henchman of the fight-fix leader, Joe Largo, Dodge takes on his defense and works with Katherine to discover the real killer. Convicted and sentenced to death, Burke is about to walk the "last mile", as Katharine encourages mortally wounded Largo to a deathbed confession.
Directed by Arthur Lubin
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Cast
Helen Mack
Nurse Katherine 'Mack' MacDonald
Dick Foran
'Killer' Lee Burke
Edmund Lowe
John Dodge
Leon Ames
Joe Largo
Horace McMahon
Larry Carson
Paul Hurst
Arlington Bysshe 'Slice' Cavanaugh
David Oliver
'Spud', the valet
Samuel S. Hinds
Judge Corrigan
Clarence Muse
'Tiger', Lee's Handler
Alan Ladd
Hospital Orderly (uncredited)
Related
Witness for the Prosecution
Woman of Straw
Party Girl
The Rainmaker
No Way Out
The Good Nurse
21 Grams
Caught
Dark City
Coffy
Angel Face
Dying Young
'G' Men
Desperate Measures
Johnny Eager
Human Desire