In this case, Kay Francis is Eve Wilson, a small-town actress whose ambition leads to a murder that sends her husband (John Litel) to jail. Giving their baby up to a blowsy vaudeville star (Minna Gombell), Eve goes to New York where she strikes the wrath of the temperamental star Janet Eaton and is fired by her agent. Eve finally finds fame in London, all the while saving the funds to free her husband from his life sentence. But there's one catch-Eve falls in love with her producer (Ian Hunter) which would be O.K. had she not promised to return to her husband should he be freed. Donald Crisp is the moral conscience of this story, while Sybil Jason is her child who comes to think of the former vaudevillian as her mother.
By 1938, audiences had seen Kay Francis go down this field of mother love so many times and with higher budgets. She had fallen out of favor at Warner Brothers after being their highest paid star so by this time, she was given nothing but "B" pictures that were not nearly as lavish as they had been during her height of popularity. Recycled sets, less than stellar photography and corny dialog made these "B" films easy targets for the critics who expected more from the Brothers Warner and their former top leading lady.
The supporting cast, too, seemed less capable, with Ian Hunter rather drab in comparison to William Powell, Warren William, Ricardo Cortez and George Brent, whom Francis had co-starred with during better times. It was also odd to choose musical director Busby Berkley to helm this women's matinée film, where the ladies who lunch oohed and awed over the Kay Francis fashions which by now overshadowed her acting.
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