- it's okay, just one of a group of films with one punch titles ("Extravagance"(1930), "Exposure"(1932)) that seemed to suggest more than the films delivered. Stoic Conway Tearle - "the man of one expression", amazingly seemed to get a new lease of life when talkies came in. I suppose he was the Clive Brook of poverty row!! He was also given a boost on Broadway by originating the role of Larry Renault in "Dinner at Eight" but unfortunately for Tearle, when the film was produced, MGM went for John Barrymore - maybe they had seen Tearle in just too many of these turgid quickies!!
He was definitely given a couple of lovely stars for this movie, starting with sultry Carmel Myers (a star of Universal, in the early days), she plays Dorothy, fed up wife of Gerald (Tearle), a frustrated writer but she is still living the life of a single woman with parties and men at her command. Gerald envies his playboy brother, George (the once popular (for a couple of years) Paul Page) - he is forever sponging off Gerry until he meets Joan who becomes his muse (he is an artist) and whom he feels is "Miss Right". When Gerald drops into one of Georges's parties (probably to see how the other, more exciting half live) he also meets pretty Joan Channing, who not knowing his identity is eager to discuss an interesting book she has been reading......
Joan is a socialite and a lot more suited to Gerald's staid intellectual pursuits than his carefree brother. They become a twosome but somehow when Dorothy finds out, she is not the laid back, everybody's got a right to be happy girl as of old - seems she wants to be the only happy one in this family. She organizes a dinner between the four of them, hoping for a showdown and there is one - but not really as she planned.
Frances Dade (Joan) was a beauty with a Joan Bennett/Jean Harlow look about her. Unfortunately she was from a socially prominent family and while that was a plus given her regal bearing and also her reputation as a very elegant dresser, it was a minus for her acting skills - she sounded as though she were slumming!! Not so Lina Basquette who made the most of her brief screen time as a tempestuous model whom George eventually discards when Joan visits the studio.
It is described as a racy pre-code but at around 50 minutes, what's left is nothing to get too excited about - just the old "two men in love with the same girl" malarkey!!