Bad Sister (1947) User Reviews

Bad Sister. Bad movie!

[JohnHowardReid · 6/10 · 10 June 2018]

Produced by Harold Huth. A J. Arthur Rank presentation. A John Corfield Production. Made at Nettlefold studios. Distributed by General Film Distributors. Copyright 3 July 1948 by John Corfield Productions, Ltd. New York opening at the Winter Garden: 10 June 1948. U.S. release through Universal-International: July 1948. U.K. release through General Film Distributors: December 1947. Australian release through G-B-D/20th Century-Fox: 2 December 1948 (sic). 8,753 feet. 97 minutes. Cut to 90 minutes in the U.S.A. British release title: The White Unicorn. USA title Bad Sister.

SYNOPSIS: A melodrama about the warden of a home for delinquent girls and her attempts to aid an unwed mother. - Copyright entry.

NOTES: Thanks largely to the presence of box-office favorite Margaret Lockwood, number 36 at British ticket-windows for 1947.

COMMENT: Capably acted and quite expensively produced, this picture's main problems are its uninvolving, cliched script and routinely pedestrian direction. The original novel seems to have been a 1946 equivalent of a Mills and Boon. We can understand the director's total lack of interest, but why the players take this pulp stuff so seriously as to waste their talents on it can only be explained by a dedication to their public that merits some sort of award for unselfishness and stamina.

Pour some tea and we'll exchange stories. In flashbacks.

[horn-5 · 19 June 2006]

Which is what Margaret Lockwood says to Joan Greenwood..."You tell me your story, and I'll tell you mine," so they take alternating turns, five minutes at a time, making this Brit sudser no problem for the placement of television commercials.

Lockwood is running a home (reform school) for juvenile delinquents and Greenwood is a certified J.D. but Lockwood gets first turn at tell-me-yours and I'll-tell-you mine. Well, Lockwood had wealth, beauty and position but her husband (dry-as-a-desert Ian Hunter) wasn't much in the loving department, so she was unhappy.

Greenwood had none of these items, and was also unhappy.

After alternating flashbacks---which beats the heck out of flashbacks-within-flashbacks---Lockwood divorces Hunter because he hired a nurse to take care of their child, so she ups and divorces him for that and a couple of other reasons. She weds dashing-and-daring Dennis Price, but he drowns. Lockwood takes the job at the J.D. home.

Greenwood came from squalor and a home with many kids, and ran away to the big city and is soon with child but the fast-talker who put her in that position isn't interested in marrying anybody who would be dumb enough to believe anything he says. Greenwood tries to gas the child, and fails but is sent to the home ran by Lockwood.

This takes about 80 minutes to unfold---five minutes at a time for each story--- and then Lockwood takes Greenwood to Judge Ian Hunter's court to help her get her baby returned, and there may be some irony in this. And there may not be.