Gale Sondergaard is the mistress of -- well, let's say it's a gambling house. It's a gambling house filled with girls. Sondergaard looks great and is fun in the role. Some of her employees are pretty and also act well. Veda Ann Borg, for one, is always good for some fun. Some of the girls are pretty. A few of the bit players, as was the case in the lesser studios, look like basset hounds with long hair.
John Carradine is kind of wasted in the role of the hero. He's fine but this was not his forte. Sidney Toler, so upstanding as Charlie Chan, is not nice here at all.
Edgar G. Ulmer does a fine job with this low-budget affair. I had never heard of it, and I thought I'd seen all his movies.
It's most fun when it stays within the genre, ruled over by Marlene Dietrich, of the good woman with a bad reputation working in a place with a terrible reputation. When it turns to adventure, it gets a little tiresome. But it's not a bad movie.
And Ulmer may have been the director who best, and most frequently, used classical and operatic music in his movies. Sure, some did when they were doing biopics of composers. But even here, we have an excellent score.
John Carradine is kind of wasted in the role of the hero. He's fine but this was not his forte. Sidney Toler, so upstanding as Charlie Chan, is not nice here at all.
Edgar G. Ulmer does a fine job with this low-budget affair. I had never heard of it, and I thought I'd seen all his movies.
It's most fun when it stays within the genre, ruled over by Marlene Dietrich, of the good woman with a bad reputation working in a place with a terrible reputation. When it turns to adventure, it gets a little tiresome. But it's not a bad movie.
And Ulmer may have been the director who best, and most frequently, used classical and operatic music in his movies. Sure, some did when they were doing biopics of composers. But even here, we have an excellent score.