"Torch Singer" is a modest pre-Code gem that showcases Claudette Colbert's fine performance as a Good Woman who, after having a baby out of wedlock, becomes a pretty good Bad Woman.

Pre-Code films often offer powerful glimpses into women's lives, even in melodramas, and "Torch Singer" is no exception. I especially like the frank manner in which the pregnancy is presented, and also the relationship that develops between Sally and Dora, two young mothers in the same situation who befriend each other.

****SPOILER****

We are introduced to Sally Trent (Colbert) as she enters a charity hospital to have her baby after an affair with Michael Gardner (David Manners), a wealthy Bostonian who has left for China. In the hospital, Sally meets Dora (Lyda Roberti), another mother without a husband. The two women join together as a family of four until Dora is forced to leave after quitting her job because of sexual harassment from her boss. Alone, Sally struggles unsuccessfully to provide for herself and daughter, whose name is also Sally. In desperation, she visits the wealthy aunt of her child's father, pleading with her to take her daughter, even offering never to see the girl again. When the aunt refuses, Sally gives up her child for adoption at the charity hospital, relinquishing all rights, only asking that the Mother Superior keep Sally as the girl's name.

After several rough years, Sally Trent emerges at Mimi Benton, a notorious but successful torch singer, hardened by life but financially well-off and in control of the many men who desire her. By accident she also becomes Aunt Jenny, the hostess of a children's radio program sponsored by Pure Foods. As Aunt Jenny, Mimi tells bedtime stories filtered through her personal experiences and sings torch-inspired lullabies while encouraging the children to keep healthy by drinking Pure Food's Ovaltine-like Oltina.

During an inspired transition in character, which Colbert manages exquisitely, Mimi realizes that her daughter may be one of the many children who listen to Aunt Jenny on the radio, prompting her to encourage girls named Sally to write to Aunt Jenny. When she receives a letter from a Sally who may indeed be her daughter, Mimi rushes to meet her. The little girl turns out to be African American, not the Caucasian child of the Sally/Michael union. I braced myself, expecting a moment of condescension, but it didn't happen. Colbert brilliantly underplays, staying in character as Aunt Jenny, betraying none of Mimi's deeply felt disappointment at not finding Sally. Mimi gives the little girl a fancy box of chocolates, sits down next to her, and warmly begins telling her one of Aunt Jenny's stories as the scene ends. The unexpected integrity of this sequence surprised and gratified me, as did its subtlety, a quality sometimes lacking from more serious films exploring racial issues a couple of decades later.

The pre-Code ethic provides another refreshing element. Sally/Mimi is never forced to apologize for the life she leads. If she suffers, it's part of the situation, not because she has to be punished.

"Torch Singer" is one of the few films in which Colbert had the opportunity to show off her not-too-bad contralto. She sings several songs including "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Love," suggesting that even voices got cleaned up after the enforcement of the Production Code.

Like many of her contemporaries, Colbert could be sexy in pre-Code films in a way she rarely could in '30s films made under the constraints of the Code. In the scene in her dressing room where Mimi tells her wealthy Bostonian about having gone through hell ("It's a nice place, you must go there someday."), dressed in a shimmering Travis Banton gown and wearing dangling earrings, Colbert is a knockout.

This is a touching if not extraordinary film about a woman who has a child out of wedlock, gives it up for adoption and suffers a great deal despite achieving wealth, glamour and fame first as a nightclub torch singer and then as a children's radio personality. This may have been Claudette Colbert's first great cinematic tour de force, gorgeously photographed by Karl Struss (through whose lens she also appeared to huge advantage in Sign of the Cross and Four Frightened People), sheathed in a variety of Travis Banton gowns and singing rather ludicrous songs by Ralph Rainger and Leo Robin in her own voice and let's give her a nod for that! The role is as juicy as can be, giving her the opportunity to essay mother love, humiliation, anger, despair, bitterness, drunkenness, nobility, eroticism - you name it. What a showcase! The screen bursts with life when she is at its center. The other performers, including an underused Lyda Roberti as a fellow unwed mother and a stiff David Manners as the father of the child, serve as window dressing. The only standout aside from Colbert is Ethel Griffies as Manners's stodgy, coldhearted aunt; acting like hers, in the grand old fashion, died decades ago but not until talkies captured the work of some of its practitioners, and it is still a treat to watch.