Let Us Live (1939)

In Springdale, MA, working class waitress Mary Roberts and cabbie John Tennant - nicknamed Brick - are engaged to be married and are planning what they hope will be a prosperous future, they in the short term having to prioritize their want for Brick to expand business beyond one taxicab against owning a small house in the suburbs. Their short term plan is for Brick to buy that second cab which his friend Joe Linden, with whom he has only recently reconnected, will drive, and that they will move into an apartment in the city while they save their money to buy that suburban house. Their collective lives are thrown into a turmoil on the eve of their wedding when eyewitnesses to the crime finger Brick and Joe as two of the three men who not only robbed the local theater, but shot its watchman dead. Mary knows Brick cannot have committed the crime as he was with her at the time. However in trial when it is her seemingly biased word against the unbiased word of the eyewitnesses, the jury finds both Brick and Joe guilty, they ultimately sentenced to death by the electric chair. Vowing to prove Brick and Joe innocent while finding the real murderers, Mary comes across a small new piece of evidence in at least showing Brick and Joe innocent. However, she is only able to convince one person that matters, Police Lieutenant Everett, who led the investigation into the robbery and murder, of the error in convicting Brick and Joe. As Mary and Lt. Everett go on a search for more evidence, they are in a race against time as once Brick and Joe are executed, any evidence proving their innocence will be somewhat meaningless especially to Brick and Joe.