'Counsellor at Law' is guaranteed to take your breath away, even if you're a child of the so-called MTV revolution of ultra-fast editing and relentless energy. It is more than 70 years old now, and it feels so new and invigorating.

John Barrymore, in the role of a lifetime, plays the brisk and matter-of-fact lawyer who came to his prestige, fortune and society-wife the hard way, cutting corners along the way, meddling in gray areas and doing a bit of shady business on the side. "I'm no golf player", he says, and right he is. In the course of a work-day, the same day that his wife and his two overbearing step-children are on their way to Europe, he is accused of corruption and his whole world collapses around him, as he tries to evade his destiny.

No synopsis of 'Counsellor at Law' can do the film justice. It is a manic, mind-blowing depiction of a breakdown, stressful and paranoiac. Barrymore's character is completely alienated from his own family, because he originates from the working-class, the son a Jewish-German baker. During this one morning at work, before things start crashing down, Barrymore has a visit from a woman who wants him to defend her son who was arrested in Union Square in the middle of an inflammatory Communist speech. And it is not even lunch-time yet.

Rent this movie, even better: Buy it. You will want to watch it more than once. It is a bona fide masterpiece, filmed in William Wyler's usual brilliantly organic style.

It's criminal that this superb melodrama, from a well-made play of the day, isn't better known. Barrymore, all cylinders firing yet giving a perfectly natural, restrained performance, is a hotshot New York lawyer facing personal and professional ruin; he may never have been better in the movies, and some of the magnetism that made him a stage legend shines through. Wyler makes no attempt to "open up" the stage material; he basically confines it to one (very beautiful) set, and his camera unobtrusively follows the legal-office denizens around, seemingly overhearing conversations, Altman-style. There's a lot of social history tucked away -- with commentary about Jews and gentiles, rich and poor, capitalist and communist -- and a whole stageful of compelling characters, who often define themselves in a walk, a smirk, a laugh. And yes, there are contrivances and coincidences, but that's the stuff the well-made melodramas of the time were made of, and they were seldom constructed as neatly as this. I saw it at a revival house, with a smart New York audience, and nobody laughed in the wrong place or grew cynical about the old social conventions that no longer apply. In fact, at the end they applauded good and hard -- after 70 years, this one's still a corker.

The often hammy film appearances of the great profile, John Barrymore, often overshadowed his greatness. He was at his best on screen in 1933 with at least three classics: "Dinner at Eight", "Topaze", and this version of the Elmer Rice play where he plays a high powered New York attorney who came up the hard way and is beyond determined to remain where he is. He helps the sweet old Jewish ladies who lived where he grew up, often charging them little (if anything) yet raising the rates of the man crazy socialites and gold digging dancing girls. When he discovers scandal concerning wife Doris Kenyon, his own legal expertise might not be enough to prevent his downfall.

Barrymore is surrounded by the most outstanding cast, standouts including Isabel Jewell as his obnoxiously chatty receptionist, future "His Girl Friday" killer John Qualen as one of his former clients turned informer and Bebe Daniels (just coming off of "42nd Street") as a lovelorn assistant.

So much happens in a very short period of time that you might find yourself watching it over and over to pick up the tough, feisty dialog. It is perfectly directed by William Wyler who wasn't as of yet in the top line of movie directors. The screenplay, mixing high comedy, drama, political satire and legal mumbo jumbo, is brilliant.

This is representative to the tea of America in the depression era 1930's with all sorts of references to what was going on at the time deep inside the world of the working class, fighting high society in its efforts to find justice. The fact that Barrymore didn't get an Oscar nomination for this is a great mystery, and had there been supporting nominations at the time, I'd vote for Isabel Jewell to get one as well.