Most of this movie is a really tenth-rate melodrama. Good woman falls for penniless musician who is of the "wrong class" - he's a foreigner and doesn't know any of the "right" families. Then he cheats on her with another woman, while all the while acting like a hypochondriac. Then, just as it would appear that she has a chance to marry someone of her own class, someone who is "right" for her, that is messed up and ... the movie ends with an unexpected switch that is as infuriating as it is unexpected.
But even before the really terrible end, everything is wrong with this movie. The dialogue is often like a parody of 1930s radio soap opera - and probably was. Basil Rathbone, who had one of the greatest voices in 1930s-40s movies, capable of giving Shakespearean resonance to the dialogues in all those great Eroll Flynn movies, is made to play an Italian immigrant who slides in and out of a bad Italian accent - that ruins his delivery. Everything else is bad too.
I suppose this was meant to be a "woman's picture," something that consoled women trapped in bad marriages engaged in despite their parents' better judgment. Was that still a large audience in the 1930s? I don't know, but this movie really stinks.
But even before the really terrible end, everything is wrong with this movie. The dialogue is often like a parody of 1930s radio soap opera - and probably was. Basil Rathbone, who had one of the greatest voices in 1930s-40s movies, capable of giving Shakespearean resonance to the dialogues in all those great Eroll Flynn movies, is made to play an Italian immigrant who slides in and out of a bad Italian accent - that ruins his delivery. Everything else is bad too.
I suppose this was meant to be a "woman's picture," something that consoled women trapped in bad marriages engaged in despite their parents' better judgment. Was that still a large audience in the 1930s? I don't know, but this movie really stinks.