oscaralbert Review of Bad Sister

Bad Sister (1931)

Universal Studio made its reputation on monster movies . . .

[6/10 · 14 March 2016]

. . . and it creates a Doozy in THE BAD SISTER. Actress Sidney Fox plays the title character, a.k.a. Marianne Madison. Even though her family of eight is on the verge of losing their house to The Great Depression, Marianne throws "fainting fits" to extort designer dress and shoe combos from her flat-broke Dad at $75 a crack (that is, $937.18, adjusted for inflation). Then when Pops won't sign off on paperwork vouching for the legitimacy of Marianne's new-in-town gangster lover Humphrey Bogart, despite her tirade disavowing her "failure" father forever, she forges the signature (ruining her family), and "elopes" with Bogart, who abandons her at a hotel in the next town after she's impregnated. Universal anticipates the ALIEN horror formula with SISTER. Even if you're having a "benign" family spaghetti dinner, you're at risk of something far scarier than a giant saber-toothed worm popping out of a bad daughter with little or no warning. As the Bible's Golden Rule says, "The love of money is the root of all evil." Even today, the Rich People's Party has seduced about one-third of America to this way of thinking, despite the Holy Book's warning.