Dir: Vincent Sherman
Joan Crawford wants to get on in the world, even if it means falling in with mobsters in the gambling racket. It’s a typical part for her – determined, slightly neurotic, with a suppressed vulnerability that only the guy she falls for (despite herself) can, and inevitably does, expose. After the opening scenes, the rest of the film is in flashback, though the switch wasn’t done effectively, resulting in some narrative confusion that persisted until near the end. It’s pretty much by the numbers, but the lesser-known supporting cast are interesting – David Brian as a gangster boss with a disturbingly aryan smarm, Kent Smith as his unwilling accountant – bland like Coronation Street’s Ken Barlow – and the impressive Steve Cochran, who I’ve only seen in Antonioni’s Il Grido, as a mutinous chapter boss. The story is a little unpleasant, playing snidely on social status and with a gratuitous tragedy involving a child near the beginning – perhaps typical of Warner’s desire to make the viewer feel uncomfortable. Very professional, and thankfully free of noir artifice, but there’s little to actually like.
Cinema Cahiers 