Sylvia Sidney is a dope who falls for a city slicker only to find out he's a crook. She gets convicted for aiding and abetting. After her prison break, the cops use her to ferret out the boyfriend she now hates. She lands a job washing dishes in a hospital and meets snowblind explorer Melvyn Douglas.
Maybe I've seen Sylvia Sidney suffering in far too many low-class weepers, demonstrating that the Shomin-Gekim was not a Japanese genre. Here's proof that there were lower-class people in the American audiences, and they liked to think their lives were as interesting and worthy of making ridiculous stories about as snoots on Park Avenue. Even the occasional swell might take off his top hat to look at a shop girl, were she pretty as Miss Sidney. Miss Sidney is a dope, the guys on the side of the law are as heartless to the poor girl as gangsters, and it's so obvious that she's a good girl that Melvyn Douglas can tell it with his eyes bandaged.
Miss Sidney needed to make more comedies. Alas, she didn't get to do that for many years in the movies. She was too good at being sad, and shy and oppressed, and making the audience wait to hear her break down and cry out at the unfairness of it all, which she finally does here about eight minutes before the end of this one.
Director William K. Howard tells the movie in a straightforward manner, and it isn't until about 50 minutes into it that he unleashes his quick-cut Dutch Angle style to let you know something exciting is about to happen. It's an awful burden that Miss Sidney has to carry this whole movie, but she does so.
Maybe I've seen Sylvia Sidney suffering in far too many low-class weepers, demonstrating that the Shomin-Gekim was not a Japanese genre. Here's proof that there were lower-class people in the American audiences, and they liked to think their lives were as interesting and worthy of making ridiculous stories about as snoots on Park Avenue. Even the occasional swell might take off his top hat to look at a shop girl, were she pretty as Miss Sidney. Miss Sidney is a dope, the guys on the side of the law are as heartless to the poor girl as gangsters, and it's so obvious that she's a good girl that Melvyn Douglas can tell it with his eyes bandaged.
Miss Sidney needed to make more comedies. Alas, she didn't get to do that for many years in the movies. She was too good at being sad, and shy and oppressed, and making the audience wait to hear her break down and cry out at the unfairness of it all, which she finally does here about eight minutes before the end of this one.
Director William K. Howard tells the movie in a straightforward manner, and it isn't until about 50 minutes into it that he unleashes his quick-cut Dutch Angle style to let you know something exciting is about to happen. It's an awful burden that Miss Sidney has to carry this whole movie, but she does so.