Irene Dunne stars as a factory-town woman who wants a better life (like Barbara Stanwyck in Stella Dallas, Katharine Hepburn in Alice Adams and Joan Crawford in Possessed). She's in love with factory worker Charles Bickford. They marry and she runs a boarding house to make extra money. One of the boarders is a shy immigrant (Eric Linden) who has discovered a great new dye. Dunne talks Bickford into throwing in their savings and open a dye works. They become rich. But Bickford travels a lot and falls into the clutches of a bad woman (Gwili Andre) who wants more than money: marriage.
The court room finale is a doozy with J. Carroll Naish playing a sleazy (Italian in this case) lawyer who has cooked up a scheme to get his girl friend (Andre) married to Bickford. So they line up a bunch of false witnesses against Dunne. But Dunne turns the tables when they try to grab custody of the baby as well. Excellent plot twist.
Dunne is one of the greats, and she's terrific here too. She's even believable as a factory-town girl. Bickford is an acquired taste and I never liked him as a "leading man." Linden is good is his usual "soft" role. And Naish is always fun to hate. Leila Bennett, Hilda Vaughn, and Christian Rub co-star.
No Other Woman is famous as the film that derailed Danish Gwili Andre's career because her character is so nasty. She battled for another decade to regain a foothold in films but only landed small parts. She committed suicide in 1959 by surrounding herself with publicity photos and press clippings and setting them and herself on fire.
