jondaris

It's a credit to silent screen star Billie Dove that she actually manages to keep Kay Francis from walking away with this movie. It's a great role for Kay, as the lecherous Countess Balakireff, with some killer dialogue ("I never noticed you had pale blue eyes before. I hate pale blue eyes").

Dove, as heiress Patricia Hanley, elopes with starving violinist Paul Gherardi (Basil Rathbone), throwing away her family, fortune and fiancé in the process. Gherardi promptly begins an affair with the predatory Balakireff, as well as achieving fame and what is apparently a load of cash. When Balakireff throws over Gherardi, he suffers a nervous breakdown and is tended to by Dr. Alan Pomeroy, (Kenneth Thomson) Mrs. Gherardi's former fiancé.

Rathbone tries hard -- in fact, it's amazing that he remained so trim with the amount of scenery he was chewing. But Dove and Francis steal the movie from him effortlessly. It's the lovely Dove, with her luminous eyes, and the ravishing Francis that raise this film above the typical precode programmer.

Special credit goes to Thomson, who comes off as a complete loser in the opening scenes, only to return in the latter part of the film as a credible potential love interest. Also noteworthy is the gown Francis wears in the Christmas Carol scene, with a neckline that plunges to her waist.

The plot here is thin, but the team of Dove and Francis make it an interesting diversion.

Aside from a few good moments of fairly raw violence, this painful film is most notable for making 68 minutes seem like two hours.

It starts with an interminably long intro where the Leeds family is introduced, including two insufferable tykes and their adult brother and sister, completely clichéd Pa and Ma, and incredibly annoying Grandpa (played by Charles "Chic" Sales). While sitting down to dinner the family is disturbed by the sounds of gunfire, and rushes to the window in time to see two men gunned down by mobsters in the street. The mobsters flee through the family's house, leaving them as witnesses to the crime.

The rest of the movie consists of Walter Huston as the crusading DA occasionally interrupting long anti-crime speeches to make half hearted attempts at trying to protect the family from the mob. It all winds up in a predictable manner.

Good points about the movie include a couple of decent shootouts and a truly nasty beating, Nat Pendleton as one of the mobsters, and the gorgeous Sue Blane in a small role as the Leeds daughter.

If you want to watch Huston play his early trademark crusading lawman, try 1932's "Beast of the City." Avoid this one if at all possible.

I can sum up in six words the reasons to see this movie: Lee Tracy, Lee Tracy, and Lee Tracy. He's in top form in this combination of melodrama and crime film. Unfortunately, despite some clever dialog, the plot of this pre-code is almost painful.

Molly Louvain (Ann Dvorak) is being pursued by hustler Nicky Grant(Leslie Fenton) and bellboy Jimmy Cook (Richard Cromwell), but she's preparing to marry a rich man who will take her away from a life as a cigar clerk. After being dumped by her rich boyfriend, she takes off with Grant.

Fast forward three years, and Louvain has had the rich boyfriend's baby, and Grant has gone from being a traveling salesman to a small time crook.

After a policeman is murdered, Molly finds herself hiding from the law. Complications ensue, none of which are really resolved in the end.

Dvorak wasn't much of an actress. She does the best she can with the script, which can't decide if she's a hard-boiled vamp or an innocent victim, sometimes changing direction within a scene. It's difficult to generate a lot of sympathy for Molly, since whenever she's faced with a decision, she automatically makes the worst one possible. Her best scene is one where she briefly flashes her assets while changing clothes, which may explain why her career hit the skids after the Production Code.

Fenton, Dvorak's real-life husband, is good in the role of sleazy crook Nicky Grant, the kind of role at which he excelled. Richard Cromwell's stilted, wooden delivery always drives me insane, and here is no exception.

But it's Tracy, as the journalist who is falling for Molly even as he tries to get the story of her capture, who is really the reason to see this film. He keeps the film watchable and entertaining, even through the train wreck of a script.