Dreadfully Boring

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Tough young nurse Lora (Barbara Stanwyck) is assigned as personal nurse to two children. She comes to believe they are in danger from their alcoholic mother and her brutish chauffeur Nick (Clark Gable) . When she gets no help from her superiors, she turns to Mortie (Ben Lyon), a bootlegger she treated for a gunshot wound. Wonderful Pre-Coder from director William Wellman. Stanwyck is very good in an early role. Clark Gable makes a great heavy. Sassy Joan Blondell is lots of fun. Charles Winninger, Vera Lewis, and Ralf Harolde offer fine support. Ben Lyon, largely forgotten today, does remarkably well here with actors who would go on to become screen legends. Don't miss those scenes of Stanwyck & Blondell undressing. Scenes like that are what Pre-Code film lovers live for.

This seems to start out as a thin exploitation (tame now) flick with Stanwyck down to her undies twice in the first fifteen minutes. It then evolves into a decent little thriller that is worth a view for early crime-drama buffs, pre-code buffs and, of course, Stanwyck buffs.I don't want to get into the plot too much because at just over an hour there isn't that much plot to unravel. Let's just say it's a pretty ugly theme with children involved. As tame as this is nowadays, this one ain't for the kids.Stanwyck is good enough though not her usual, stellar presence; she comes off a little stiff and unconvincing in parts. Joan Blondel is very good as the roommate but fades into the background in the latter half. Clark Gable is kind of one-note as the creepy chauffeur. So there are no career defining, must see performances. But these are minor quibbles on my part; it's still a solid way to burn an hour-ten.

Barbara Stanwyck works hard in this and just about keeps it going. It's as if she has more idea of where this film is going than the director himself. There is much that looks amateur here and I reckon its down to sloppy direction. Gable looks downright silly every time he pops up, looking as if he's just dropped in from some other movie and why does Joan Blondell have to chew gum a seem a little daffy all the time? There are good bits, the girls seem to have to get in and out of their dresses rather a lot and everyone but the nurses seem to get drunk at one point or another. A doctor is seen as a baddie and a bootlegger as a goodie in this very strange film, in which the girls seem to get hit more than the guys. Too many babies for my liking but I guess its quirky enough to hold the interest.

Another win for William Wellman! He keeps moving up the list of my favorite directors. In this one, Barbara Stanwyck stars as a nurse who is assigned to watch two young girls. She discovers that they're illness is being exacerbated by a crooked doctor. It seems that the doctor and the kids' mother's chauffeur (Clark Gable, looking delightfully evil in his black chauffeur's uniform) are conspiring to let them die. Unfortunately, Stanwyck is obliged to follow the doctor's rules, as per her profession's code of ethics (hopefully this has changed over the past 75 years!). It's a good story, and Stanwyck is fantastic in it. My major complaint is that Wellman goes for some strange comic scenes. The girls' mother is an alcoholic (the doctor and chauffeur are also trying to keep her inebriated, so she doesn't stop their murder plot), and she always has friends over for parties. The drunks are all played as comical, which grates against the more serious themes of the movie. Joan Blondell co-stars as the nurse who takes care of the kids during the day (and apparently she's nowhere near as concerned as Stanwyck about it, or at least she doesn't do anything about it!). This movie is found in Warner's Forbidden Hollywood Vol. 2, not in Vol. 3, which is nothing but Wellman films.