It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

A pretty good film of its kind, with Barbara Stanwyck giving her usual high level of performance. I find Ralph Graves, who plays her artist/lover, to be a stiff and totally miscast as an artist. He seems more like an undertaker and the worst part of the movie is trying to figure out why Barbara's character was ever attracted to him in the first place. Otherwise, acting is good and the plot is one that we've seen before; poor, "working" girl in love with son of a rich, important family. Of course they object.The only time Barbara does not ring true is in the emotional scene when his mother comes to ask her to give him up. It is a bit over the top. Again, the problem is Ralph Graves. He is not worth all of that drama and sobbing. And what an odd-looking man he was, with an unusually shaped head.Kind of a ridiculous ending, but so many of the movies of the day had that in common. At least she was allowed to live.

Slow-moving, over-long hundred minutes that a few years ago would have been dubbed a "woman's" picture. Though directed by the legendary Frank Capra, too many scenes labor at getting the point across-- the overnight episode, the many scenes of Kay {Stanwyck} "pining" for her man. Frankly, I found myself hitting "fast forward" to eliminate some of the redundancies. Now, I'm not opposed to love stories; I'm just opposed to the needless stretching of a point, and this film has too many over-worked scenes. Too bad that the sparkling opening scene proves misleading. My guess is that movie makers in 1929 were still feeling their way through the new sound technology, even the talented Capra. Certainly, his later films show both the economy and pacing generally absent from this early effort.At least the young Stanwyck gets to show her acting chops as she runs the emotional gamut from great joy to deep sadness. It's quite a performance in an especially demanding role. The trouble is her co-star Ralph Graves has all the charm and appeal of dried cement. Next to Stanwyck, he's a deadening presence and makes drawn-out scenes seem endless. As a supposed artist, he's simply miscast. Unfortunately, he also sounds like one of those silent screen stars unable to deliver the new technology in convincing fashion. Too bad that the enlivening Prevost and the amusing Sherman don't have more scenes to boost the energy level.Nonetheless, there is one scene that almost redeems the rest. Mrs. Strong (Nance O'Neill) visits Kay to break off the disreputable Kay's engagement to her son Jerry (Graves). In an ace performance, Strong enters as a proud, assured woman of wealth and breeding, convinced that son Jerry is about to make a huge mistake marrying a floozie. However, as Kay's noble nature emerges under a common concern for Jerry's wellbeing, Mom begins to see past Kay's dubious reputation just as Jerry has. The emotional stages each moves through toward a mutual respect proves quite compelling. It's a marvelously written and performed sequence, full of nuance and conflicting emotion, and in my view the film's real centerpiece. Anyway, for those interested, the movie now stands mainly as an early look (before her teeth were fixed) at one of the screen's outstanding personalities.

Considering that movies only began to talk in 1928, this early sound film starring BARBARA STANWYCK as a girl of ill repute (she calls herself a party girl), and RALPH GRAVES as an artist who wants to use her as a model, is not bad at all. It's certainly one of the better jobs in sound recording for a film made in the early '30s. As usual with films of this period, there is almost no music on the soundtrack except for the moment when "The End" is flashed on the screen. In the TCM print I watched, the screen then fades to black while some "exit" music is played against a dark screen.Stanwyck is the prostitute with a heart of gold who finds a good man and doesn't want to let him go, even when his family objects to their union when he proposes marriage. She is convinced by the mother to give him up--but circumstances change after she makes a rash decision.Stanwyck is excellent at conveying the brassy qualities of the character, but then reveals the softer nature of the girl as she falls in love with the man who only wants to paint her portrait. The tenderness of the romance that develops is full of nuances that one wouldn't expect from a Frank Capra film. The sentimental ending is more in keeping with his usual style.RALPH GRAVES gives a quiet, assured performance as the man who finds that he does really love Stanwyck. LOWELL SHERMAN does his usual schtick as an inebriated friend who flounces around making wisecracks. MARIE PREVOST has some good moments as Stanwyck's roommate and NANCE O'NEIL does a good job as Grave's well-meaning mother.Stanwyck fans will appreciate her well modulated performance.

LADIES OF LEISURE, adapted to the screen from a play, is another in a long line of Frank Capra-directed films that pits the lower orders against the upper through the device of a romantic entanglement. In this case it's "lady of leisure" (read: prostitute or good time gal) Barbara Stanwyck against the slightly bohemian scion of a wealthy banking family (Ralph Graves). The theme of the movie is set right away as we see a bustling Manhattan street at night. Suddenly bottles fall from the sky and explode on the sidewalk, narrowly missing pedestrians. They are coming from a group of drunken young women who are tossing them over a penthouse terrace balcony for kicks. These party girls have been hired by dissolute swell Lowell Sherman, a friend of Graves, who, offended by the crudity of the party scene, hops into his roadster for a drive into the country. He stops by a lake where he sees a young woman (Stanwyck) dressed in an evening gown rowing herself ashore in a canoe. It turns out she too is a party girl and is also escaping a wild party, this time on a yacht. He finds her attractive and offers her a ride back to the city. As is her habit, she picks his pocket while he's driving. Thus the plot line is set. We know what will happen by the end. Along the way we are treated to a beautifully etched characterization by Stanwyck who covers a wide range of acting territory from crude and lowdown to transcendentally idealistic. The equally inventive Marie Prevost provides generous support as her overweight roommate. Lowell Sherman, playing the same type of hard-drinking, pleasure-loving sophisticate as he often did in other movies (Bachelor Apartment, What Price Hollywood), is also excellent.For whatever reason, Ralph Graves cannot perform like a flesh and blood human being. His movements are stiff and unmotivated, his emotions seem forced and sudden. Even the expression on his face looks pasted on from some other character in some other movie. All wrong. One is not surprised to see that within a few years he was playing uncredited bit parts in third-rate movies. His silent film credits are numerous and go back to the teens so one can only wonder what his appeal was. He is not bad looking, so one must assume that his substantial silent film career owed a lot to his appearance.