Bad Girl

1931

Drama / Romance

2
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 39% · 1 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 39% · 250 ratings
IMDb Rating 6.4/10 10 1759 1.8K

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Plot summary

A man and woman, skeptical about romance, nonetheless fall in love and are wed, but their lack of confidence in the opposite sex haunts their marriage.

Director

Top cast

Minna Gombell as Edna Driggs
Paul Fix as Nervous Expectant Father
Billy Watson as Floyd
Claude King as Dr. Burgess
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
809.9 MB
862*720
English 2.0
NR
23.976 fps
1 hr 28 min
Seeds 2
1.47 GB
1292*1080
English 2.0
NR
23.976 fps
1 hr 28 min
Seeds 1

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by bensonj

...Good Film

Note: some scenes described in detail.As usual for Borzage, this is full of sentiment, and the details of the plot are deadly. Never was the development of misunderstandings between two inarticulate people more aggressively, one might say more ruthlessly, pursued. When they're not playing "Gift of the Magi" (he giving up the dream of his own radio store for the big apartment he thinks she wants), they're busy each thinking that the other doesn't really want the baby. And how could Borzage resist milking the maternity ward scene, with its inevitable ethnic cross-section, older woman, and troubled mother. And here's another version of that typical pre-Code era film pair, the beautiful girl and the unhandsome blow-hard boob.All that said, this is still a very good film in spite of itself, certainly deserving of its Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. Borzage constantly redeems himself at the worst moments. A prime example: the evening before the baby's due Jimmy goes out to fight four rounds of preliminaries at $10 a round to pay the doctor. Sally is lying at home, convinced that he's with his drunken friends, or worse, and no longer loves her. Dunn's opponent is a mean-looking, cynical, paunchy guy who's about to knock him out in the second round. Oh, the ironic cross-cutting: he's getting the crap beat out of him, while she lies in bed, anxious and bitter. But, in a clinch, Jimmy begs the pug not to knock him out because his wife's going to have a baby. Why didn't you say so, says the obliging pug, I've got two of my own. In an amusing moment they chat away while pretending to lambaste each other. This takes the curse off the sentimental plot maneuvering.And there are a lot of other fine sequences, too. The film starts with Eilers in a fancy wedding gown, being attended to by a dresser. She's so nervous, she tells best-friend Gombell, who's dressed as a bridesmaid. As they do the formal bride's walk through the phalanx of bridesmaids, in the corner of the screen one sees part of a tray of dirty dishes being carried by a waiter. Gradually the camera pulls back to show that they're modeling the gowns for a bunch of lecherous buyers. Then they go to Luna Park (nice shots of the park). Throughout these early scenes there are plenty of sharp pre-Code wisecracks about how men only have one thing on their minds. Funny, breezy stuff. They meet Dunn on the ferry on the way home, the first guy that doesn't make a pass. The scene shifts to the couple sitting at the foot of her rooming-house stairwell. As they talk, an old hen-pecked lush comes down the stairs, and an older woman uses the hall phone to tell her sister that their mother has just died. That may be pouring the milieu on a bit thick, Borzage style, but this scene is beautifully played by Eilers and by the older woman and is quite affecting. Later, when Eilers stays in Dunn's room (no hanky-panky, it seems) and he asks her to marry him, her brother kicks her out of the house, and Gombell, the brother's gal, walks too. (Single-mom Gombell's little boy is a terror. In the morning he won't scram: "I want to see Dotty get out of bed.") Sally is sure that Jimmy will desert her at the alter, and that's the beginning of all the tear-jerking plot elements.But the film goes beyond those elements with a richness of detail, a generous painting of daily life in the city during the Depression. And, when all's said and done, what really makes the film, and where Borzage ultimately redeems himself, is in the performances. Eilers, who somehow never got the recognition she deserved, is beautiful and gives a strong, sensitive, emotional performance--for my money a more appealing one than most of Janet Gaynor's work for Borzage. Gombell, another undervalued thirties player, is really fine as the tough but good-natured pal, who doesn't let Dunn's dislike of her color her opinion of him as a good husband for Eilers. Her performance goes beyond the requirements of the script in very subtle ways. And Dunn, well, he plays the typical early-thirties boob of a husband, but even he has a bravura scene when he breaks down while having to beg the expensive doctor to handle his wife's childbirth. Borzage films are always full of sentiment, but not always honest sentiment. This scene with the doctor is full of sentiment, but it's honestly handled, and one can say the same for the whole film.
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Reviewed by 1930s_Time_Machine 7 / 10

A 1930s kitchen sink drama!

This is a beautifully made, poignant drama about a young working-class couple starting their life together in the tenements of 1930s New York. This couple is incredibly normal and that's what makes this film so watchable. They're not gangsters, prostitutes, criminals, lawyers, or society girls down on their luck, they are just an ordinary couple without anything making them different to anyone else. What makes this so enthralling is therefore its story and specifically the storytelling.

The world these people live in is perfectly encapsulated with a scene early on when a neighbour dies on one floor of their tenement and a baby is born on another. Our hero sadly concludes: "Born on the second story... he'll probably die on the fifth. All his life, just to climb three flights of stairs." This however is a positive story, it shows that although The Depression was of course a struggle, even living in a one-room-apartment people survived, they went to work, had fun, got married, started families and found happiness. It was just life and that's what this picture is about even though in this case the couple aren't sure they're ideal for each other, aren't sure what they want, aren't sure that the other one doesn't love them and that makes us uneasy as to whether they will stay together. It's so well presented that very quickly we feel we know these people so are hoping desperately that they will make a go of it and that everything works out for them.

Inasmuch that it's about ordinary people, this is somewhat reminiscent of 1932's VIRTUE but the characters and the story and even the acting in this feel more natural and modern. It is perhaps more like the Kitchen Sink Dramas of the 50s and 60s such as LOOK BACK IN ANGER but set in America.

Why is it called "Bad Girl" and why has it got such a salacious poster? Obviously to get people to flock to the cinema and obviously to get people like me nearly a century later to watch it! Fox Films however knew that to avoid riots in their theatres when the customers realised the extend of the false advertising, they had to provide a genuinely top rate entertainment and that's exactly what they did. There is no "bad girl" in this film, that was the name of the book on which this was based but even in the book "bad girl" is just an insult which is thrown unjustly around, a term which our protagonist doesn't want to get branded with. Although this was made in what's referred to as "the pre-code era" the PCA made very sure that with this picture, the Hays Code was very heavily enforced. The eyes of the nation were on them because Vina Delmar's book had caused such an outcry, it was banned in Boston and was cited as containing: downright and unforgivable nastiness. Any suggestions or even hints that pre-marital sex was something which actually existed was heavily censored. The long process of consultation with the PCA lasted so long that Fox Films considered abandoning this entire project but eventually Miss Delmar's novel was considered suitably sanitised. We obviously can't ever know how a film of the original story would have been but even so, the changes certainly haven't destroyed the theme or spirit of the story. Possibly the challenges they posed have made a more interesting movie since Borzage has had to compensate for the lack of explicit content, language and sex with a visual flair unique to him.

The poster by the way does not seem remotely connected in any way with this film - it's good though isn't it!

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