Comet Over Broadway (1938) User Reviews (15)

Kay, Strong and Brave

[movingpicturegal · 7/10 · 14 September 2006]

Soap Opera about a small town married woman (Kay Francis) who works at the local newsstand, performs as leading lady in her local playhouse, but dreams of becoming a star on Broadway. When a famous actor who is a ham, a windbag, and a womanizer to boot, arrives in town she visits him in his room with dreams of him giving her tips to stardom - he pretends his valet is his "manager" tricking her into believing she has all it takes but "experience" to become a big star. Her husband finds out and punches the guy resulting in the actor's unexpected death - which leads to a murder trial and even more unexpected: a life prison sentence for hubby. Next thing you know she's joined a traveling Burlesque show in hopes of one day making it to Broadway and making enough money to get her man's freedom - all the while her baby is sleeping in a trunk!

This film has a pretty interesting plot, well, a bit far-fetched perhaps, but very melodramatic (with tons of melodramatic music to make sure you get it) - all *greatly* enhanced by the strong, emotional performance given by Kay Francis - she just makes this film. Also helping here is the well-done acting by Minna Gombell in her role as a "getting close to forty" older lady who works the burlesque and befriends Kay. Worth seeing, especially for Kay Francis fans.

Oh Suffering Kay!

[boblipton · 6/10 · 15 July 2002]

Another Kay Francis super-weeper. Here, through no fault of her own -- or indeed, anyone -- she loses her husband, her daughter and her home and must get it all back by going on stage, starting in burlesque, until her triumphant Broadway premiere enables her to get her husband out of prison. She doesn't love him any more, of course, but that's a chance to suffer when the movie is over. Kay and an excellent supporting cast manage to put this drivel over,which explains why she was the highest paid woman on the Warner Brothers lot. While you might do better to whet your teeth for the delectable Miss Fwancis --she had a slight but charming speech impediment -- on better vehicles such as TROUBLE IN PARADISE, this piece manages to hold up.

More baffled by the negative reviews than any flaws in the movie.

[luvly_ducks · 7/10 · 17 November 2020]

One would admit that the production values of this film are skimpy but that's not really the essential message of this film. It's not about a woman giving up her womanhood to stand on her own. Nor about true love. It is a simple tale of one's own self worth and the ethics of life.

Kay's character in the beginning is a self centered nitwit with dreams of stardom. She forgoes any sense of propriety. She lies to her husband and visits a smarmy has been actor in his cabin. Alone. At night. Moments before he will sexually assault her-and even Kay can see this coming- her husband intrudes and in the scuffle and fight kills him. It's accidental but the court doesn't see it that way and the poor chap is carted off to prison for the rest of his life. Kay fools herself into thinking that once she becomes a star she can free her husband, come back and love him.

Off to New York she goes. With her toddling child. (Why didn't she leave her with her mother in-law?) Yes, she hates Kay. Understandably. Her flightiness caused the tragedy. After all, she would have cared for her grandchild. And the truth would have been told and the young girl could have visited her father. Yes, yes in prison. Kay would have come out the stinker but then she should have.

So, Kay goes to New York and puts the make on a theatrical producer. Because he already has a girlie she gets Kay fired. But the Broadway hotshot promises her a big break in another production. For once in her life she uses her brain and says no dice. Exit Kay.

Now, she's off to London to become a star on her own. However, her kid is a bit of a drag on her. She is way too easily convinced to leave the child with an over the hill hoofer she meets while touring the States. What conscientious mother would drop her child and be an ocean away from her? Kay would. And she does.

In London Kay at last realises her dreams. She sends for the kid. The hoofer brings her but the child regards the hoofer as her mother. Kay is pissed. But the hoofer explains the facts of the situation to Kay. As if she should need to have them explained to her. With a tear in her eye Kay sees the right of it.

It's probably here when the script Kay has been following in her quest for fame and redemption gets complicated. Her poor child goes through emotional torture on being separated from her surrogate mother to live with Kay. It's pathetic but the poor kid endures. Her surrogate/hoofer mother is devastated as well on losing the child she half-raised and will soon become a fixture in every sleazy bar in New York.

Kay's producer boyfriend has since returned though to pick up where they left off. They're so very, very happy. The child is doing better. Kay is famous. She's in love, bless her. Now she'll really feel great about herself when she can see her husband walk out of the prison he's been in for the past eight years. Thanks to her then and her money now. After that she can tell him she's never loved him and let's just leave bygones be bygones because she wants to marry another man.

But when she sees her husband life doesn't play out the way she thought. He still loves her. Unquestionably. Unconditionally. He hasn't seen his own child in years. He's rather frail. A heart condition. But he has dreams. Of an automotive shop. Of them being together as a family again. Hearing this her lifelong brain fog clears. She is his wife. His dreams are just as worthy and just as valid as her were. She realised her dream. Isn't her Broadway romance looking just a little cheap around the edges now? Kay has left nothing but a trail of tears behind her. The poor lecher that was accidentally killed, her broken hearted mother in law seeing her son go off to prison, her child's loss of her surrogate mother, the surrogate mother's loss of her child....E-Gads!

Maybe it's your turn Kay to take the bad with the good.... Certainly her daughter is willing.

By the way, Kay Francis is superb. Bette Davis would have ruined it.

Too many "Huh??" moments

[CMUltra · 3/10 · 6 August 2006]

Any time a movie is so myopic in its desire to present a particular ending or viewpoint that it simply doesn't bother with an actual story, it's annoying. Those are the types of movies where the ending or viewpoint is conceived first, and the story simply tacked on. For this reason we often talk of the story "jumping through hoops" as it twists about, trying in vain to progress to the preordained ending in a logical fashion.

The story in "Comet Over Broadway" doesn't just jump through hoops, it's a three ring circus. It's so ludicrous, so ill-conceived, so disingenuous that, if you are prone to speaking aloud to the screen, you will be carrying on quite a rant before it's through.

The central theme of this screenplay cesspool is that of a woman choosing between family and profession. Since it's all so horribly muddled it will end up offensive to people of either opinion. So, in the end there's no point to the story, the theme becomes irrelevant and, as is often the case with poor screenplays, the acting doesn't save a thing.

Quintessential Matinée Melodrama For Our Kay

[museumofdave · 7/10 · 23 July 2017]

Many reviewers treat this film as a major studio production, an All About Eve of its time, and scathingly criticize it's inadequacies, of which there are admittedly many. But there are multiple pleasures to be had in a very short running time, though many of them are guilty ones.

This soapy yarn centers around a hometown newsstand girl who becomes an international actress almost overnight in order to make sure her dull hubby John Litel doesn't stay into the clink where he was tossed when he offed a bad actor by decking him for insulting Our Kay. The film was made during a later period of Kay's career, when Warners was attempting to convince their fading star to break her contract so they wouldn't need to pay her exorbitant contract fee; Gutsy Kay didn't care much at this point, but gamely let herself be cast in B movies like this one, second string films, weepers made specifically for women's matinees—a time long before television. She still made the money.

The Orry-Kelly costumes that Kay styles are ravishing; as she rises from burlesque sweetie to continental darling, the dresses rise to the occasion, often deliciously outrageous. And there are some worthwhile performances from familiar Hollywood character actors, the best likely from Minna Gombel as a "wise old broad" who knows her way around and babysits Kay's souvenir from her small town marriage—and you may want to strangle Sybil Jason, a child star who mugs and grimaces until you want to scream for her to get off the screen! (During an early backstage visit as Kay meets the famous out-of-town thespian, one also gets a glimpse of Susan Hayward, who has a single line in an itty-bitty part).

And since we never, ever, get to see what talents catapulted Kay to world fame on stage-she's always ready to go on or meeting with someone after the show; we don't get to see The Comet In Action! But this is melodrama at its most extreme, and by the end of the film you may never forgive yourself for sticking with it—unless you find the absurd conclusion as much fun as I did. Comet Over Broadway is not a great film, and maybe not even a very good one—but it's never dull and is cunningly crafted so that you can hardly wait to see not only what Kay will wear next, but if her heart will take her where it should.

Ludicrous Tripe

[Ursula_Two_Point_Seven_T · 3/10 · 4 August 2006]

2 stars for Kay Francis -- she's wonderful! And she didn't deserve this horrible tripe that Warner Bros. threw her way!

The two-pronged premise that this movie is based on is ridiculous and unbelievable in the extreme. Kay is a small-town wife and mother who yearns for something bigger: she wants to be an actress. When a big-shot actor comes to town and invites Kay to his hotel to talk about possibilities, Kay tells her husband she's going to the movies. The hubby's biddy of a mother puts a bug in hubby's ear that Kay's not being truthful, and he sets out looking for her. He finds her w/ the actor in the hotel (they are only talking!) and he slugs the guy, who falls over a railing, lands face-first in a pond (lake?), and dies. Now here's the two unbelievable premises upon which the rest of the movie is based:

1) the judge tells the jury that if it's determined that the man died *before* his head went into the water, that they must find the hubby guilty of first degree murder. (Whaaaaa?????? I think slugging a guy in a fit of rage would count for manslaughter or murder 2 at the most, not FIRST DEGREE murder. Give me a break! But the plot required him being found guilty of murder 1 so that he could be sent to prison for life. Whatever.)

2) the hubby's lawyer, after the conviction and sentencing, tells Kay that it's all HER fault. His reasoning is that if she hadn't gone over to the actor's room, then her husband wouldn't have had to go after her and slug the guy and kill him. He tells her that she's the guilty one, not her husband, and she nods and agrees. What. The. Hell?!?!?! The rest of the movie is all about Kay trying to achieve fame and money in order to get her husband released from prison and right the wrong she committed by causing him to kill the actor dude in the first place.

I can't even go on with this review. The movie was just all too painful. Four years earlier, in the pre-code days, you'd never have caught Kay playing such a wimp! In true Kay Francis fashion, though, she did do her best to make us believe that this woman was a believable character. I give her much credit for trying to breathe some life and credibility to this thankless role. This character was a far cry from pre-code Kay roles and real-life spitfire Kay Francis.

Steer way clear of this one! There are much better Kay Francis vehicles out there! (From personal experience, I can highly recommend Mary Stevens, MD and Jewel Robbery; also good are Dr. Monica and One Way Passage. I'm sure there's other great Kay flicks as well, but I'm only mentioning the ones I've seen and can recommend.)

Beyond tear-jerker into deep tragedy, and all for nothing

[pschearer · 6/10 · 11 April 2006]

I don't care if no one ever finds this comment helpful, but it has to be said. This movie goes beyond 1930's ladies' matinée three-hankie weepy into the depths of unnecessary tragedy, and most people will not even realize it.

====== SPOILERS ====== The main character is Eve Appleton (played wonderfully by the beautiful and sensitive Kay Francis). Eve is a small-town woman with high aspirations as an actress and the talent to make her dreams come true. But through nothing more than bad luck, her ambitions lead to an un-premeditated killing by her decent but clueless husband, which leads to his conviction and life-sentence for murder. She vows to get him released and to devote the rest of her life to being a good little wife. She struggles for years to reach the highest levels as an actress, winning fame on both sides of the Atlantic, which finally gives her the money to pay for the lawyers and political contacts that will get her husband out of prison. The movie ends with her and her little girl walking the long, dusty road to the prison to be re-united with her husband, undoubtedly to follow through with her promise to love, honor, and obey forever and ever amen THE END.

Baloney (or worse)!! In the eight years over which the story unfolds, we see Eve's incredible strength of character and determination to achieve her goals as she struggles up the performing ranks from carnival shows to (pre-stripper) burlesque to vaudeville to Broadway and London. We see her pain as she must turn the raising of her infant daughter over to a faded starlet who really loves the child and raises her well but who keeps secret from the daughter who her real mommy and daddy are. We can be hopeful for a happy ending as we realize that not only has Eve (now known as Wilson) attained the heights of her career but now has the love of a Broadway producer who understands her better than her small-town husband--whom she no longer loves--could ever dream to.

I hoped so much that after she freed her husband, he would learn that she hadn't been a Manhattan nanny all those years, that he would realize that they were no longer right for each other, that he would absolve her of her promise, and they could finally go on their respective ways to their separate happinesses.

But no. And here comes the part where I don't care what anyone else thinks of my comments.

Whether anyone knows it or not, our lives are ruled by philosophy, dealing with answers to questions such as... Do I recognize and adhere to the facts of reality, or do I ignore them and pretend they don't matter? Or... Do I act to achieve my goals and happiness or do I give them up to serve others as if their goals matter but mine don't?

Recognizing reality would have required Eve to admit that she would be living in a fantasy world to think she could keep the truth of her past life a secret from her husband forever. She had become an internationally known beauty and would have to live in constant fear that somebody might someday recognize her and tell her husband. She must spend the rest of her life pretending to love a man and hope he never notices the lie. She must perpetually shush her daughter into silence, the daughter who by then not only knows her true mother's identity but also her mother's phenomenal success. And Eve is REALLY fantasizing if she thinks she can suppress everything in her without becoming embittered and resentful and turning into the exact opposite of the loving wife she wishes to be for her husband. All this is contrary to every fact the movie has shown us about her. So Eve will have to live as if facts are subservient to her wishes and fears, as if reality means nothing.

Worse yet philosophically is the moral lesson the movie implicitly preaches. Surrender your hopes and dreams. You made a promise and must keep it no matter how much you or your husband or the whole world have changed. But most of all, you have no right to your happiness since duty, service, sacrifice, self-denial, submission, surrender are the essence of the moral principle called altruism which unfortunately rules the world. America with its unique notion of the individual's "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" came closest to rejecting this prehistoric morality, but altruism lives on, in the world at large and in America, so I should not be surprised that it also ruled at Warner Brothers in the 1930's. But I had hoped, all the way up to the end, for a happy and MORAL ending such as Eve and the American audience deserve.

This doesn't mean don't see the movie. Kay Francis and several admirable supporting characters raise this film above mediocre. But be aware that the makers of this movie expect you to believe that Eve has done the right thing by sacrificing her ambitions. If you find yourself bothered by this ending, I hope I may have given you a clue why you are right to feel disturbed.

More Warner Bros substandard garbage for Kay Francis

[blanche-2 · 5/10 · 20 September 2008]

Kay Francis is a "Comet Over Broadway" in this 1938 sudser also starring Ian Hunter, Minna Gombell, John Litel, Donald Crisp, Sybil Jason. These melodramas Warners threw at Kay to try to force her and her $200,000+ salary out of there always seem like they were made 7 or 8 years earlier. In this one, Kay is Eve Appleton, an aspiring actress in a small town, looked on disapprovingly by her mother-in-law but loved by her bumpkin husband Bill (Litel). When a Barrymore-like (read washed up drunk) actor from New York hits town, he takes an interest in Kay's "talent." When he's through auditioning her, he's dead, Bill has life imprisonment for murder and she and her baby are on their way to New York so she can make money to free him.

Yeah, it gets better. Eve does the burlesque and vaudeville route, along the way meeting Tim (Gombell) who offers to take daughter Jackie until Eve gets established. Once in New York, she meets and falls in love with a producer, Bert Balin (Keith), and he with her. He casts her in a play, but his girlfriend, the star, orders her fired. So Eve goes to London in order to get away from the temptation of Bert. There she becomes a huge star and reunites with Jackie, who calls Tim 'Mommy.' She also reconnects with Bert, who offers her a play in New York. Since Bill's attorney needs money to free Bill (apparently by bribing public officials, it's not clear), Eve takes an advance on her salary. WIth Bill soon to be free, what does she do about her career and Balin? This absolutely preposterous dreck was directed by Busy Berkeley until he was hospitalized, and then John Farrow took over. All it needed was a big dance number. Eve doesn't want her husband ever to learn about this enormous career - how is that supposed to be accomplished? Didn't the town know? This film was made in 1938, not 2008, and stage stars like Katherine Cornell and Eve LaGalliene were well known to people even in small towns because they toured with their plays. And how did this guy end up in jail for murder 1 to begin with? There was a fight and the actor landed in a pond with a fatal head injury. No manslaughter? But the judge gave him a break and didn't impose the death penalty. He thought this guy was coming onto his wife! I won't even go into Tim never bothering to mention that Eve was her mother.

The acting by Kay Francis and one of my favorites, Ian Keith, is excellent, and they do the best they can to raise up the level of this film. Unfortunately they're fighting a losing battle. Minna Gombell is pretty good, if stagy, as Tim, and John Litel is appropriately simpleton.

As for how this film truly ends, I wouldn't DREAM of giving it away, but if you listen carefully, there's a line that promises us that the end we see is not the true end. Not that it matters.

Oh, of mild interest for one line spoken by future star Susan Hayward during the amateur theatrics scene.

Dramatic but improbable story with nutty conclusion

[mbhur · 7/10 · 17 November 2020]

The plot machinations of the story require one of the all-time miscarriages of justice, when Bill (John Litel) is sentenced to life imprisonment on a charge of "premeditated" first degree murder for a punch thrown in anger upon discovering his wife in another man's hotel bungalow. From there on in, the story doesn't get any more logical.

I've never been a fan of Kay Francis, and find it hard to see the qualities that made her for several years the biggest female star in Hollywood. I guess there were a lot of people who liked to watch a woman suffer, which was her trademark. In this movie she does her fair share of suffering, though she does realize her theatrical ambitions to become the toast of the London stage.

As others have remarked, the ending is pretty nutty, but I guess this is what her fans expected. She forsakes any chance at personal happiness in order to be true to the promise to her husband she made 8 years earlier, and because of her guilt over having caused his imprisonment. But how could you believe that she would give up the stage career that meant so much to her? Or that no one in their small town would know she'd become a star? (Yes, there was no internet, but everyone read newspapers and magazines).

Sybil Jason, who plays the daughter is like Kay now widely forgotten, but in her day was second only to Shirley Temple in child star popularity. She has a weird distracting accent (she was born in South Africa) and some annoying affectations. In this story she's put through an emotional ringer similar to Kay's, having to find out that the woman who raised her isn't her mother, than being taken away from her. And then she has to be sworn to secrecy that Kay is a big star. Can any child really keep that secret? (And we never learn what happened to "Tim," who raised her. She just conveniently drops out of the story. Tim was played by Minna Gombell, usually a character actress but here with a pretty big part.)

Why couldn't she just tell Bill that she was now a successful actress? Wouldn't he want the financial security she could provide the family? What was he going to do to support the family after 8 years in prison? Well, I guess that's par for the course for Kay. Living a life of small town poverty with a man she doesn't love. More suffering.

A pre-cursor to "All About Eve".

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 19 April 2014]

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.

Those Who Trespass

[wes-connors · 4/10 · 18 May 2011]

Small town actress Kay Francis (as Eve) is excited when star actor Ian Keith (as John Banks) arrives in town, and admires one of her amateur stage performances. Husband John Litel (as Bill Appleton) becomes jealous when Ms. Francis visits Mr. Keith's cottage, hoping to obtain some professional tips. Francis dreams of a career on the Broadway stage. Taking advantage of her admiration and aspirations, Keith makes a pass at Francis, and then Mr. Litel interrupts them. He accidentally kills Keith with a single punch. The court is unfair, and Litel is sentenced to life in prison. This leaves Francis free to pursue her acting career...

Francis also vows to get her husband out of jail and be a good homemaker, someday. She gives their baby to lonely older showgirl Minna Gombell (as Tim Adams) to raise as her own daughter. The little girl grows up to be "pint-sized Garbo" Sybil Jason (as Jackie). Francis works as a carnival, burlesque, and vaudeville entertainer. She finds stardom and romance with playwright producer Ian Hunter (as Bert Ballin). Eventually, Francis' past catches up with her... Susan Hayward has a small part in the first minutes, as Francis' amateur play ends. Later, former star Maurice Costello appears on stage as a non-speaking actor.

**** Comet Over Broadway (12/3/38) Busby Berkeley ~ Kay Francis, Minna Gombell, John Litel, Ian Hunter

See Kay's Other Films; Skip This One

[TomInSanFrancisco · 4/10 · 9 September 2008]

I read somewhere that when Kay Francis refused to take a cut in pay, Warner Bros. retaliated by casting her in inferior projects for the remainder of her contract.

She decided to take the money. But her career suffered accordingly.

That might explain what she was doing in "Comet Over Broadway." (Though it doesn't explain why Donald Crisp and Ian Hunter are in it, too.) "Ludicrous" is the word that others have used for the plot of this film, and that's right on target. The murder trial. Her seedy vaudeville career. Her success in London. Her final scene with her daughter. No part logically leads to the next part.

Also, the sets and costumes looked like B-movie stuff. And her hair! Turner is showing lots and lots of her movies this month. Watch any OTHER one and you'll be doing yourself a favor.

Among her worst

[buxtonhill · 2/10 · 21 January 2010]

The competition for the worst Warner Bros Kay Francis movie is stiff. I've only seen perhaps eight of them, but Comet over Broadway is the worst so far. The very best thing about it is that it's short. Oh, and the Orry-Kelly gowns (of course) are fine. James Wong Howe's cinematography is not. Kay Francis throughout looks fat-faced and far less attractive than she normally does. Minna Gombell whom I don't know otherwise is good as a semi-tough "burlesque" dancer (it looked more like a fashion show than burlesque). The closing shot - Kay Francis and her child (when did the child learn that Kay Francis was her mother? Did I doze off?) walking up a dirt path toward a prison painted in misty outlines on a sound stage drop is beyond ludicrous. The whole film is so cheap, so implausible and so careless that it feels infected by a sour cynicism on the part of everyone who made it: Warner Bros tossing garbage to dolts who don't know, in Warner Bros' cynical estimation of them, that what they're getting is garbage.

Stay away from the theater!

[HotToastyRag · 4/10 · 12 August 2018]

There have been countless movies advertising the terrible life of show business, but for some reason, they never prevent young idiots from flocking to Hollywood or Broadway. Comet Over Broadway is another advertisement to stay very far away from the theater, unless it's your goal to have a difficult, upsetting life and wreck the lives of those around you.

Kay Francis wants to be a star more than anything in the world, and as everyone knows, you have to be willing to do anything to make it. Every cliché in the book is in this movie about what a young hopeful has to sacrifice to become a starlet. You've heard of it, Kay Francis does it. This is a pretty melodramatic movie, typical of the early 1930s, so if you don't usually like drama drizzled on top of drama for no reason, you probably won't like this one. I didn't really like it, because everything could have been avoided if Kay Francis decided to settle down for a normal life. A good therapist could have helped her, and saved me an hour.

I can't think of any actor who could have made this plot work...even the old Warner Brothers polish couldn't save it.

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 24 January 2010]

Wow, the plot for this film is all over the place! There is so much plot and so many things that happen that it practically made my head spin!! And, as a result, none of it seemed particularly believable.

The movie starts with Kay Francis as a housewife living in a small town. She's had some experience with local theater and has ambitions of going to Broadway. When a big-time actor arrives in town, she pursues him in hopes that he can give her a career boost. But, her husband is worried about shenanigans--as this actor is a cad. So, the hubby bursts in on them and hits the actor--and the actor dies! As a result, he's convicted of First Degree Murder!!! Not Manslaughter, but Murder 1! Now, pregnant and in need of funds, Kay goes to New York. But Broadway jobs aren't to be found, so she's forced to take any job--even Burlesque. Unable to adequately care for her young daughter, she gives it to another woman to raise. However, eventually she does find a job in a real Broadway play and everything looks rosy. But, the jealous diva starring in the play hates her for some inexplicable reason and forces her to be thrown off the play. Despondent, she makes her way to England and becomes a real star. Years later, she returns to New York to get her kid--but the child is older and thinks the woman caring for her is her real mother. At the same time, her husband's lawyer now thinks that if he gets $10,000 he can get the man out of prison. As another reviewer wrote, is this to bribe people?! How can $10,000 get him out otherwise--maybe it will buy a helicopter so they can fly into the prison yard and scoop him up!! Wow--this is enough for 2 or 3 films! And, all this occurs by the 45 minute mark!!! Believe it or not, there's quite a bit more to it. If you really care, see it yourself to find out how it all unfolds.

This is sort of like 'kitchen sink writing'--throwing in practically everything and hoping, somehow, it will all work. Unfortunately, the film turns out to be hopelessly unbelievable and mushy despite Ms. Francis' best efforts. It's the sort of film no one could really have saved thanks to a 2nd-rate plot. It's almost as if someone just took a few dozen plot elements, threw them into a box and then began randomly picking them in order to make a movie!! Overall, unless you are a die-hard Kay Francis fan or love anything Hollywood made in the 1930s, this one is one you can easily skip. Not terrible but certainly not good.

By the way, the child who plays Francis' daughter upon her return to New York (Sybil Jason) really was terrible. I think she was supposed to be...I think.