It seems odd to me that with all the attention now being paid to Hollywood's pre-code movies, similar resurrections have not occurred for those British films that were likewise categorized as unsuitable for a re-issue. In fact most of these movies have not even appeared on TV. RKO Radio's "Frail Women" (made in 1931, released in early 1932) is a case in point. The movie is set in 1914 when women of virtue sacrificed everything for love of the men who were going off to fight in the First World War. Why? Simply because the women felt that they too should make a sacrifice, and it was the biggest thing they could do for the men who were going off to fight for their country and would most probably never return. Mary Newcomb plays such a woman. She bears a daughter who is now a teenager in the movie, played by Margaret Vines. To add another screw to the story, the daughter has been adopted by a man (played by Athole Stewart) who didn't know the girl was illegitimate. And to add yet a further complication, the man's son wants to marry the girl! Also in the cast: Edmund Gwenn, who plays a rough and ready bookmaker who offers our heroine shelter, and Owen Nares as a man who offers her marriage -- not because he loves her but because he feels her "sacrifice" should not go unrewarded. Although the movie is somewhat dialog-bound, it's directed with reasonable assurance by Maurice Elvey.
Review of Frail Women
