Bad Girl

Plot

Based on a novel by Vina Delmar, Bad Girl stars Sally Eilers as heroine Dot Haley. The title notwithstanding, Dot isn't bad at all. She enters into a decent marriage with a decent guy, radio store clerk Eddie (James Dunn), and sticks with her man through thick and thin (mostly thin). But Eddie misunderstands Dot's seeming indifference to the new apartment which he has rented and furnished as a first-anniversary surprise. Eddie doesn't know what Dot and the audience do: there's a baby on the way, and that's all that Dot can think about. Once this misunderstanding is cleared up, Eddie takes on all sorts of extra jobs to pay for a pricey obstetrician, even moonlighting as a prizefighter. So impressed is the baby doctor by Eddie's devotion that he refuses to charge a cent when delivering Dot's baby (the bill, by the way, is a daunting $40). Curiously, some synopses of Bad Girl suggest that the hero and heroine never get married, which is hardly the case. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Review

Modern audiences will likely be amazed to learn that Bad Girl was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar (and won Oscars for its screenplay and direction). Terribly dated, Bad Girl is not a bad film, but it hardly seems worthy of such honors. Edwin H. Burke's screenplay is overly familiar in many places, but it does attempt to tell a fairly realistic story of two poor people struggling through the challenges of the Great Depression. There's some nice, tasty dialogue served up along the way, peppered with plenty of Depression-era slang, but these alternate with patches of stilted, unconvincing dialogue. Burke also can't keep his hands off a few contrived and jarring plot twists. Frank Borzage's direction is considerably better. This is the kind of "love conquers all" material that was Borzage's meat, and very few directors had such an affinity for romance and could put it on the screen in such a heartfelt manner. Yet it's still not Borzage's best work, surprisingly stiff in a few places and not as cohesively packaged as might have been expected. The acting is generally good, with Sally Eilers and James Dunn affecting and quite realistic. While not one of the great tearjerkers, Bad Girl is worth catching for fans of the genre and for fans of the director. ~ Craig Butler, Rovi

Cast

• Sally Eilers - Dorothy Haley
• James Dunn - Eddie Collins
• Minna Gombell - Edna Driggs
• William Pawley - Jim Haley
• Frank Darien - Lathrop

Edmund Breese; Paul Fix

Credit

Frank Borzage - Director, Chester A. Lyons - Cinematographer, Edwin H. Burke - Screenwriter, Vina Delmar - Screenwriter, Vina Delmar - Play Author

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