Ruth Chatterton is in the family way. She tries to tell her father, who runs a notorious Barbary Coast dive, but he slaps her, which causes the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire. Afterwards she gives birth and runs a string of call girls in cooperation with lawyer Louis Calhern, but has to give up her baby, who is adopted by Berton Churchill. Nonetheless, Miss Chatterton keeps an album of her boy, known only to her loyal Chinese companion, Helen Jerome Eddy.
William Wellman directs expertly frm a script by Wilson Mizner, with a fast start and a nice representation of the 1906 Quake, and for much of the movie, it wobbles engagingly between murder and mirth. But this is a Ruth Chatterton vehicle, so the final quarter is devoted to melodrama. While it clearly pleased the audiences at the time, the change of tone was far too much for me.
William Wellman directs expertly frm a script by Wilson Mizner, with a fast start and a nice representation of the 1906 Quake, and for much of the movie, it wobbles engagingly between murder and mirth. But this is a Ruth Chatterton vehicle, so the final quarter is devoted to melodrama. While it clearly pleased the audiences at the time, the change of tone was far too much for me.