Hedy Lamar was beautiful and clever, but not a great actress. This movie is a melodrama (not a noir) in which she plays Jenny, a social climber ready to sell her assets to the best buyer. Consequently, most of her acting consists of pouting and flirting, without much subtlety.
Jenny marries a rich old man as a way to escape from her drunkard father, then proceeds to flirting with her stepson, only to "really" falling in love with a friend's boyfriend. Not to loose social status, Jenny tries to persuade her stepson to kill his father, while actually planning to dump him, once he would free her from the annoying old man.
Complications ensued, followed by melodramatic ending. It's funny, but also worrying that some reviewers think of Jenny as a tragic feminist heroine, because she "uses her sexuality" and - by the standards of the time - she should be punished. Jenny is actually conspiring to commit murder, planning to get rid of the man she is turning into a killer to seduce another one and deceiving a friend who trusted her. So much for feminist heroism.
Jenny marries a rich old man as a way to escape from her drunkard father, then proceeds to flirting with her stepson, only to "really" falling in love with a friend's boyfriend. Not to loose social status, Jenny tries to persuade her stepson to kill his father, while actually planning to dump him, once he would free her from the annoying old man.
Complications ensued, followed by melodramatic ending. It's funny, but also worrying that some reviewers think of Jenny as a tragic feminist heroine, because she "uses her sexuality" and - by the standards of the time - she should be punished. Jenny is actually conspiring to commit murder, planning to get rid of the man she is turning into a killer to seduce another one and deceiving a friend who trusted her. So much for feminist heroism.