"Allotment Wives" was the second to last movie that Kay Francis made. She co-produced this and a couple other films at Monogram Studios after her falling out with the major Hollywood studios. She went into retirement the next year, and only made a couple appearance in TV series in 1950 and 1951. The one-time leading actress at MGM and Warner Brothers lived her last 15 years in seclusion and died of cancer in 1968 at 63 years of age.
In this film, Francis plays a tough as nails, hard-hearted head of a syndicate that swindles the U. S. government. Sheila Seymour's network has numerous women who marry several servicemen during World War II, to rake in their allotments and insurance payments for those who are killed. She has a front of an exclusive women's beauty salon, as well as a canteen she set up for GIs, sailors and Marines. She also has a daughter who has spent most of her life in an exclusive boarding school. Otto Kruger is Whitey Colton, who is Sheila's top aide and boyfriend, and his boys handle the dirty work when they need to rub somebody out.
The War Department's Office of Dependency Benefits (ODB) has been trying to catch and break up the organized crime network. They send Col. Peter Martin to head up the job. Paul Kelly plays Martin and operates from his former newspaper job on a Los Angeles paper. The feds aren't too sharp and Sheila's gang get wise to Kelly quickly. But a rebellious daughter, Connie (played by Teala Loring), and an old juvenile delinquent from Sheila's reformatory past - Gladys Smith (played by Gertrude Michael) lead to Sheila's downfall.
The acting is fair but nothing great. It's an interesting plot and unusual story about the ODB - the only movie I know of that ever even mentioned such a wartime agency and service for dependents. While there no doubt were many abuses of the ODB program - most of those would be quickie marriages of guys in uniform, so that women could receive benefits, and insurance payments for those men killed in the war, it's doubtful there was anything like the network in this picture. Each GI had his own serial number, and even without computers, the human work of records filing would have caught women who married more than one GI. Then, to have a ring coordinating and putting this all together would be quite far-fetched.
At the very least, this film has something about a little known wartime agency for dependent families of men in WW II service. And, it's a good, and quite different look at Kay Francis at the end of her acting career. Here's a good exchange of dialog between Sheila and Whitey when she finds out who Peter Martin is.
Sheila, "Maybe I better cultivate him. Might be amusing. And, might help our information file." Whitey, "Might help his too. You're a fool if you go sticking your pretty neck out." Sheila, "I'm never a fool. And only geese stick their necks out."
In this film, Francis plays a tough as nails, hard-hearted head of a syndicate that swindles the U. S. government. Sheila Seymour's network has numerous women who marry several servicemen during World War II, to rake in their allotments and insurance payments for those who are killed. She has a front of an exclusive women's beauty salon, as well as a canteen she set up for GIs, sailors and Marines. She also has a daughter who has spent most of her life in an exclusive boarding school. Otto Kruger is Whitey Colton, who is Sheila's top aide and boyfriend, and his boys handle the dirty work when they need to rub somebody out.
The War Department's Office of Dependency Benefits (ODB) has been trying to catch and break up the organized crime network. They send Col. Peter Martin to head up the job. Paul Kelly plays Martin and operates from his former newspaper job on a Los Angeles paper. The feds aren't too sharp and Sheila's gang get wise to Kelly quickly. But a rebellious daughter, Connie (played by Teala Loring), and an old juvenile delinquent from Sheila's reformatory past - Gladys Smith (played by Gertrude Michael) lead to Sheila's downfall.
The acting is fair but nothing great. It's an interesting plot and unusual story about the ODB - the only movie I know of that ever even mentioned such a wartime agency and service for dependents. While there no doubt were many abuses of the ODB program - most of those would be quickie marriages of guys in uniform, so that women could receive benefits, and insurance payments for those men killed in the war, it's doubtful there was anything like the network in this picture. Each GI had his own serial number, and even without computers, the human work of records filing would have caught women who married more than one GI. Then, to have a ring coordinating and putting this all together would be quite far-fetched.
At the very least, this film has something about a little known wartime agency for dependent families of men in WW II service. And, it's a good, and quite different look at Kay Francis at the end of her acting career. Here's a good exchange of dialog between Sheila and Whitey when she finds out who Peter Martin is.
Sheila, "Maybe I better cultivate him. Might be amusing. And, might help our information file." Whitey, "Might help his too. You're a fool if you go sticking your pretty neck out." Sheila, "I'm never a fool. And only geese stick their necks out."