I never thought much of Loretta Young as an actress until I saw her pre-code work, where she really got to play multi-faceted characters. Her luminous screen presence and sense of inner moral fortitude are compelling, especially when she played so-called "bad girls."
Mary Martin isn't a bad girl, really, but a woman often lured into crime by bad circumstances and poverty. This story, which only occasionally lapses into melodramatic excess, is moving and hard-hitting in a way American films were reluctant to be outside of noir come the rigid enforcement of the Production Code from the mid-30s to the early 1960s.
Aside from Young and an excellent supporting cast, this movie is superbly directed by William Wellman, one of pre-code's most distinctive directors. His movies defy the stereotype that all early talkies were static, poorly acted nonsense. There's a technical bravura in this movie and his other early sound masterpieces like THE PUBLIC ENEMY.
Mary Martin isn't a bad girl, really, but a woman often lured into crime by bad circumstances and poverty. This story, which only occasionally lapses into melodramatic excess, is moving and hard-hitting in a way American films were reluctant to be outside of noir come the rigid enforcement of the Production Code from the mid-30s to the early 1960s.
Aside from Young and an excellent supporting cast, this movie is superbly directed by William Wellman, one of pre-code's most distinctive directors. His movies defy the stereotype that all early talkies were static, poorly acted nonsense. There's a technical bravura in this movie and his other early sound masterpieces like THE PUBLIC ENEMY.