User Reviews

At first, this film is "Jewel Robbery" with thief Brian Donlevy stealing a bracelet for his partner-in-crime wife (Miriam Hopkins), who has just had a baby. Hopkins, however, is furious when she learns that her hubby doesn't want to continue in their life of crime and wants to buy a farm in New England. She conspires with their cohort (Phillip Reed) to frame Donlevy for robbery so she can run off with Reed.

When Donlevy finds out, he seeks revenge, and ends up in jail for murder. Hopkins, it turns out, wasn't all that interested in being a mother, so she goes on the lamb. Their daughter, Diana, is raised by a cop acquaintance (Preston Foster) who married the baby nurse (Gloria Holden) and became an attorney. This part of the story changes the theme to a male "mother love" story as Hopkins comes back, finds out that Diana is engaged to a wealthy young man, and demands payment. From there, the film changes its theme to a semi film noir look as Donlevy breaks out of jail and plots revenge against Hopkins.

It is the last third of this film that is exciting, an on the edge of your seats thriller that never lets up. I found myself laughing with irony watching Hopkins panic more and more as her road to hell came closer her way.

The first third of the movie is alright, but explodes into delight once the film noir elements are revealed. Hopkins, Foster and Donlevy all give excellent performances. Hopkins makes a wonderful villianess. Fans of the horror film "Dracula's Daughter" will be surprised to see Gloria Holden in a sympathetic role. Douglas Dumbrille plays his usual shady lawyer with sleazy aplomb. Harold Huber offers amusement as Donlevy's old sidekick, Stubby.

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER I'm going to spoil this one completely along with the silent film "Forgotten Faces" from 1928, which you'll probably never see because it is Paramount.

This film is - on major plot points - a remake of Paramount's 1928 A-list film "Forgotten Faces". It is also probably one of the few films about life in the USA from 1942 that has nothing to do with Nazis, spies, WWII canteens and romances sprouting from soldier-civilian interaction there, etc.

Brian Donlevy plays Helitrope Harry, a noble jewel thief. As the film opens his wife, Flo (Miriam Hopkins), has just given birth to their daughter. As a result, Harry begins to lose his nerve about continuing to be a thief because of the consequences to his daughter. Preston Foster is Police Detective Tom Gaynor, who is always trying to catch Harry but never can. Tom is studying nights to get his law degree. Well motherly instincts never set in with Flo, and she is horrified to think she'll be taken away from her party girl life and stuck on some farm in New England just because Harry wants the daughter to have a good environment. A guy in Harry's gang who has his eyes on Flo talks her into double-crossing Harry on his last job by informing Detective Gaynor where and how Harry will be stealing his last jewel. You don't have to talk long to convince Flo to do this.

But somehow Harry outsmarts the detective again, but realizes Flo and her boyfriend would have had to be the ones to give him the details. He shoots the boyfriend dead, but won't shoot the mother of his child. He then turns himself into Tom for the murder, and also says he'll give him the jewels for which there is a 10K reward if Tom only promises to finish his law degree and raise his infant daughter from that point forward. Tom agrees and Harry is sentenced to life for murder.

Fast forward eighteen years and absentee mama Flo pays a visit to Tom saying she never gave her consent to her daughter's adoption and wants her back UNLESS Tom pays her 50K upfront and 1K a month for "damages" and "emotional loss". Right. There were several scenes of the daughter growing up and, in parallel, Flo globe trotting and loving the nightlife with whichever male companion she had hitched herself to at the time. She's just showing up now because her daughter is about to marry into society and she knows that Tom knows that any publicity, regardless of the outcome of any custody suit, would brand the daughter as the product of a trollop mother and a murderer father. Back in those days bloodlines mattered. I'll let you see how this whole thing works out, but don't think Harry is out of maneuvers just because he is in jail.

Now this was a poverty row remake, but they did manage to get pretty good actors - Brian Donlevy, Miriam Hopkins, and Preston Foster in the lead, all giving good performances. There are differences between this film and the original Forgotten Faces. First off Harry's true friend, "Stubby", is just the chauffeur and although he has a good heart is just a little too dense to be one of Harry's gang. He is played by Harold Huber. In the silent film that part was played by - believe it or not - William Powell. Powell played the heavy in silents, but when sound came in he was judged too debonair sounding to play the heavy. Poor Olga Baclanova was perfect as the lowlife wife of Harry in the silent version, but sound revealed her almost unintelligible Russian accent. People were probably expecting someone who sounded like Miriam Hopkins, who got the part here.

There was a production code that began enforcement between the silent and this film, so many parts have been sanitized. The wife and her boyfriend were insinuated to be having sex when Harry came home and shot them in the silent film. Here they are just tickling the ivories and Harry shoots the boyfriend for double-crossing, and even shows remorse here. Not in the silent. In the original, Harry leaves the daughter with some rich couple who just lost their own daughter. Leaving babies on doorsteps of complete strangers was something that had gone out with tying virgins to railway tracks by 1942, so the police detective character is invented as someone on the straight and narrow who Harry actually knows. There are other differences, but you see that the story arc is basically the same.

Two things that did stand out as odd. When Tom goes to officially adopt Harry's daughter he finds that the judge cannot allow an official adoption to a single man. Next frame, he and the nurse that has been caring for the daughter since she was born are married and calling each other "darling". Nothing makes a gal feel more like a can opener - a useful tool - than being treated like one. It would have been nice to see how this transition from nurse to wife occurred. Finally this film did - kind of - work WWII into the plot by having Harry's daughter's fiancé in the military and in full uniform the night of a fancy society ball.

This one is worth catching. Maybe I enjoyed it because I was comparing it to Forgotten Faces the entire time, but it is an impressive work for a poverty row studio - no cheap sets, no hackneyed script, no hammy or abbreviated acting.