Franchot Tone is just out of prison, and mama May Robson is glad to see him. So are girlfriends Karen Morley and Gladys George, representing good choices and bad choices -- it's all very symbolic. Tone never wants to go back to prison, but his old gangster friends and the difficulty of getting a job stand in his way.
It's based on a play by Dana Burnet and George Abbot, and it had been made as a silent as FOUR WALLS. I haven't seen that version, but there are hints in this one that these are all Jews from New York's Lower East Side, which makes the casting of the absolutely whitebread Tone and Miss Robson absurd. There's no doubt he was a serious actor, but he couldn't set foot on a stage without letting you know he he went to an Ivy League school by his demeanor. While director Paul Sloane handles the issues seriously, hearing Tone speak with Nat Pendleton, who, this movie would have us believe, grew up on the same block, destroys any illusions.