Russian emigree Ruth Chatterton marries Geoffrey Kerr, a British officer about to go off to fight in the Great War. She bears a daughter, but her in-laws are thoughtless and cruel, while Chatterton is thoughtless and foolish. When Kerr sends her away to Cannes while he stands for Parliament, she leaves the train to go with Ivor Novello, then decides to return to her daughter and husband. However, the train has crashed, and everyone in her car has been killed. Kerr and his family blather a lot about her betrayal, so she leaves again, to become a cocotte in Paris.
Fast forward to 1931. Chatterton is still practicing her trade. Her daughter has grown up to be Jill Esmond. She and Bramwell Fletcher are in love, but he is an architectural student, and Kerr won't let them marry. So, Miss Esmond leaves, goes to Paris to be with Fletcher, and winds up at a wild party, where she encounters Miss Chatterton.
It's a remake of the Pola Negri vehicle THREE SINNERS, and it's all about suffering in mink, wild coincidences and the usual movie world in which there seem to be only about twenty people in Britain and France, so they run into each other. Miss Chatterton, is as usual, very good. She is very Russian, very depressed and very moral in her own thoughtless way, while everyone else is simply thoughtless. It is that thoughtlessness, as well as the wild coincidences, that annoy me very much.... that, and given Miss Chatterton's very self-assured performance, everyone else seems mean and cruel and selfish.
Fast forward to 1931. Chatterton is still practicing her trade. Her daughter has grown up to be Jill Esmond. She and Bramwell Fletcher are in love, but he is an architectural student, and Kerr won't let them marry. So, Miss Esmond leaves, goes to Paris to be with Fletcher, and winds up at a wild party, where she encounters Miss Chatterton.
It's a remake of the Pola Negri vehicle THREE SINNERS, and it's all about suffering in mink, wild coincidences and the usual movie world in which there seem to be only about twenty people in Britain and France, so they run into each other. Miss Chatterton, is as usual, very good. She is very Russian, very depressed and very moral in her own thoughtless way, while everyone else is simply thoughtless. It is that thoughtlessness, as well as the wild coincidences, that annoy me very much.... that, and given Miss Chatterton's very self-assured performance, everyone else seems mean and cruel and selfish.