This is a terribly made film. It's so disjointed it's like watching a YouTube compilation of Claudette Colbert clips from several different films all stuck together.
If this was a novel it would be like someone had removed every other chapter. Each ten minutes or so you're almost watching a different film with different characters. I would find it hard to imagine how any plot could be contrived to link all this character developments anyway. For example the story begins with David Manners running away to China for five years leaving his pregnant girlfriend destitute trying to bring up the baby without any money or anywhere to live. She can't so she has to give it up. Eventually he returns from China and says: "oh sorry for abandoning you and the baby to nearly starve and freeze to death." So obviously she forgives him and everything is fine.....seriously it is that stupid.
There is bit more to this such her becoming a nightclub singer, the most scandalous woman in New York (although none of that is explained at all) and presenter of a children's radio show in order to track down her daughter....all run of the mill stuff. Either the team of writers who put this together wrote their bits in complete isolation without any idea of what the other was doing or it was written on the day they abolished prohibition!
As always, Claudette Colbert's acting is outstanding. She's equally as good as the downtrodden starving waif as she is as the man-eating night club singer as she is the passionate mother searching desperately for her child. It's just a shame that we don't get to see how she changes. Maybe this was a 2 hour film once and the editor had a funny turn? There's absolutely no transition from one persona to the next. It seems a waste of good acting! The rest of the cast are excellent as well but again, they make no sense: at one point Colbert is sharing an apartment with Lyda Roberti, five minutes later, seemingly in another film, she's vanished. Ricardo Cortez, playing a nice guy for a change, seems as though he's set to be the romantic interest but in the next scene the writers changed their mind.
Overall this is dire. Other than an excuse to gaze at gorgeous Claudette Colbert for an hour and hear her singing - which really isn't that impressive (to become the successful singer in this picture she must have had other talents.....but that's not explained) there is no reason at all why this should be watched.......except is you're a Toby Wing spotter! Oh yes, the world's most beautiful non-speaking extra, the goddess herself, Toby Wing has no less than two walk on parts in this as "blonde at party."
If this was a novel it would be like someone had removed every other chapter. Each ten minutes or so you're almost watching a different film with different characters. I would find it hard to imagine how any plot could be contrived to link all this character developments anyway. For example the story begins with David Manners running away to China for five years leaving his pregnant girlfriend destitute trying to bring up the baby without any money or anywhere to live. She can't so she has to give it up. Eventually he returns from China and says: "oh sorry for abandoning you and the baby to nearly starve and freeze to death." So obviously she forgives him and everything is fine.....seriously it is that stupid.
There is bit more to this such her becoming a nightclub singer, the most scandalous woman in New York (although none of that is explained at all) and presenter of a children's radio show in order to track down her daughter....all run of the mill stuff. Either the team of writers who put this together wrote their bits in complete isolation without any idea of what the other was doing or it was written on the day they abolished prohibition!
As always, Claudette Colbert's acting is outstanding. She's equally as good as the downtrodden starving waif as she is as the man-eating night club singer as she is the passionate mother searching desperately for her child. It's just a shame that we don't get to see how she changes. Maybe this was a 2 hour film once and the editor had a funny turn? There's absolutely no transition from one persona to the next. It seems a waste of good acting! The rest of the cast are excellent as well but again, they make no sense: at one point Colbert is sharing an apartment with Lyda Roberti, five minutes later, seemingly in another film, she's vanished. Ricardo Cortez, playing a nice guy for a change, seems as though he's set to be the romantic interest but in the next scene the writers changed their mind.
Overall this is dire. Other than an excuse to gaze at gorgeous Claudette Colbert for an hour and hear her singing - which really isn't that impressive (to become the successful singer in this picture she must have had other talents.....but that's not explained) there is no reason at all why this should be watched.......except is you're a Toby Wing spotter! Oh yes, the world's most beautiful non-speaking extra, the goddess herself, Toby Wing has no less than two walk on parts in this as "blonde at party."