A diplomat is blackmailed by crooked vice cops into helping them frame prostitutes.A diplomat is blackmailed by crooked vice cops into helping them frame prostitutes.A diplomat is blackmailed by crooked vice cops into helping them frame prostitutes.
Rockliffe Fellowes
- Detective-Sergeant Mather
- (as Rockcliffe Fellowes)
Irving Bacon
- Masher
- (uncredited)
Lynton Brent
- Court Clerk
- (uncredited)
James P. Burtis
- Reporter
- (uncredited)
Martin Cichy
- Det. O'Brien
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaOne of over 700 Paramount Productions, filmed between 1929 and 1949, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by Universal ever since.
- GoofsAt the Ambassador's Ball, the orchestra is playing 'Falling in Love Again' from The Blue Angel. This scene is set in 1929 or earlier, as there is a title which moves the action two years on after this, and The Vice Squad was released in 1931. 'Falling in Love Again' did not become well-known as a hit song until 1930.
- ConnectionsReferenced in Public Enemies: The Golden Age of the Gangster Film (2008)
Featured review
Corrupt Cops in 1931? That's PreCode!
Paul Lukas refuses Vice Squad Rockcliffe Fellowes demand to name the lady he was with -- the ambassador's wife, who has run down and killed the officer who tried to arrest her. Fellowes offers him a choice: accessory to murder, or work with him as a "stool pigeon", trapping girls for .... well, they call it "vagrancy" in the movie. A couple of years later, he's still at it, drinking his meals. When he rescues Judith Wood, who's been living in Greenwich Village as an aspiring writer, she returns the favor by nursing him during a session of the DTs. A couple of days later, he's sent to her apartment, but on the way out he tells Fellowes the truth: there's no morals charge involved. Fellowes arrests her anyway.
It's a serious social problem movie, with titles that speak to this sort of police misconduct. Despite the lack of anything particularly prurient on screen, it marks itself as a serious Pre-Code; while the Warner Brothers Studio would show the gangsters having a grand time shooting up the sets, or Demille would give the audience a wild party, this one makes it a personal story, well acted by Lukas, torn between Miss Wood and his former fiancee, Kay Francis, who offers him a return to respectability, but warns him that if he disgraces himself by testifying in court, she will drop him back into the gutter.
Because of the lack of excitement and Lukas' low-affect depression, I found it to be an earnest but not particularly cinematic effort.
It's a serious social problem movie, with titles that speak to this sort of police misconduct. Despite the lack of anything particularly prurient on screen, it marks itself as a serious Pre-Code; while the Warner Brothers Studio would show the gangsters having a grand time shooting up the sets, or Demille would give the audience a wild party, this one makes it a personal story, well acted by Lukas, torn between Miss Wood and his former fiancee, Kay Francis, who offers him a return to respectability, but warns him that if he disgraces himself by testifying in court, she will drop him back into the gutter.
Because of the lack of excitement and Lukas' low-affect depression, I found it to be an earnest but not particularly cinematic effort.
helpful•11
- boblipton
- Feb 3, 2019
Details
- Runtime1 hour 21 minutes
- Color
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