Lew Ayres loses his first professional fight, and wife Jean Harlow walks out on him. Without this distraction, manager Robert Armstrong treats him like a child, and works him up to the championship fight. Whereupon Miss Harlow returns, milks him, installs her lover as Ayres' manager, leaving Armstrong out in the cold.
It's a love story between the two men, with all the world acting as a distraction. Based on a story by W. R. Burnett, it's certainly an unequal love story, more a matter of Armstrong mothering Ayres, but as he loses his fighter, he starts going downhill himself, frustrated at not being able to speak the truth, and hitting the bottle. It's Tod Browning's follow-up to DRACULA, and in some ways can be seen as part of his long-running interest in the way people love. Ayres gives a capable performance, Armstrong is particularly good, and Miss Harlow begins to show she can act.
It's a love story between the two men, with all the world acting as a distraction. Based on a story by W. R. Burnett, it's certainly an unequal love story, more a matter of Armstrong mothering Ayres, but as he loses his fighter, he starts going downhill himself, frustrated at not being able to speak the truth, and hitting the bottle. It's Tod Browning's follow-up to DRACULA, and in some ways can be seen as part of his long-running interest in the way people love. Ayres gives a capable performance, Armstrong is particularly good, and Miss Harlow begins to show she can act.