Despite the high degree improbability of it all, this turned out to be a fairly entertaining picture. Hopefully with today's offering on Turner Classics, this film might put together the requisite number of votes to get a rating on this board. It has some of the appeal found in the exploitation flicks of the same era, but with writing and direction that places it a notch above.
The story involves a young woman who gets tangled up with a smarmy con man (Hale Hamilton) doing a pickpocket grift that leads to a shakedown at targeted retail stores. When Sylvia (Mae Clarke) gets busted and sent to prison for a year long stretch, she plots her revenge against the insurance adjuster who wouldn't bend the rules to let her off easy in the first place. That angle might have played out a lot more believably if one of Sylvia's prison buddies (Marie Prevost) hadn't been involved with the same guy (Ralph Bellamy) a couple of years earlier. In one of the wildest stretches of imagination, both ex-cons duped the gullible Joe Smith (seriously, not an alias) into a phony marriage. Obviously, a whole lot of thought wasn't put into this story, but that's what they came up with.
Naturally, this one plays out with Smith and Sylvia hooking up together for real once they discover they have feelings for each other following a series of events that bring out their better natures. Not entirely unexpected, but again, it takes a bit of a stretch to get there.
Veteran character actor Ralph Bellamy eventually went on to become a well regarded and respected performer, even though he never made it as a major headliner. Mae Clark is probably best known for taking a grapefruit in the kisser from Jimmy Cagney in 1931's "The Public Enemy". Their hook-up here doesn't involve too much chemistry, but considering the circumstances, that's to be expected. The thing that I kept wondering about was how a couple of ex-jailbird floozies like Sylvia and Jeanie always walked around in such fashionable clothes.
Addendum dated 10/17/09: Forty eight hours ago, this film didn't have the minimum five votes needed to insure an IMDb rating, nor did it have a single review. As I write this, the film has twenty two votes and four comments. I read that as a testament to the dedication serious cinema fans apply to their entertainment, particularly as it applies to films offered on Turner Classics. I have seen a similar pattern for prior TCM offerings, and would like to thank and encourage those viewers for going the extra mile in pursuit of their passion and interest.
The story involves a young woman who gets tangled up with a smarmy con man (Hale Hamilton) doing a pickpocket grift that leads to a shakedown at targeted retail stores. When Sylvia (Mae Clarke) gets busted and sent to prison for a year long stretch, she plots her revenge against the insurance adjuster who wouldn't bend the rules to let her off easy in the first place. That angle might have played out a lot more believably if one of Sylvia's prison buddies (Marie Prevost) hadn't been involved with the same guy (Ralph Bellamy) a couple of years earlier. In one of the wildest stretches of imagination, both ex-cons duped the gullible Joe Smith (seriously, not an alias) into a phony marriage. Obviously, a whole lot of thought wasn't put into this story, but that's what they came up with.
Naturally, this one plays out with Smith and Sylvia hooking up together for real once they discover they have feelings for each other following a series of events that bring out their better natures. Not entirely unexpected, but again, it takes a bit of a stretch to get there.
Veteran character actor Ralph Bellamy eventually went on to become a well regarded and respected performer, even though he never made it as a major headliner. Mae Clark is probably best known for taking a grapefruit in the kisser from Jimmy Cagney in 1931's "The Public Enemy". Their hook-up here doesn't involve too much chemistry, but considering the circumstances, that's to be expected. The thing that I kept wondering about was how a couple of ex-jailbird floozies like Sylvia and Jeanie always walked around in such fashionable clothes.
Addendum dated 10/17/09: Forty eight hours ago, this film didn't have the minimum five votes needed to insure an IMDb rating, nor did it have a single review. As I write this, the film has twenty two votes and four comments. I read that as a testament to the dedication serious cinema fans apply to their entertainment, particularly as it applies to films offered on Turner Classics. I have seen a similar pattern for prior TCM offerings, and would like to thank and encourage those viewers for going the extra mile in pursuit of their passion and interest.