The Woman I Stole (1933) User Reviews

Fun, Hokey Love Triangle Drama Set in Arab Desert Oil Fields

[sftiger · 6/10 · 19 October 2005]

First off, there are some very camp elements to this pre-code relic. The characters are shallowly scripted, but the principals creditably give them what they can. The ethnic stereotypes (and the wrong, wrong, wrong! depiction of Muslims at prayer!) may offend some, and anybody familiar with North Africa will notice many more howlers.

Still, Jack Holt's portrayal of Jim Bradler is almost Gable-esquire in its macho eloquence and Fay Wray is wonderful as hard, selfish Vida. The ending is unintentionally hysterical, but what elicits howls today may have only raised eyebrows among the cognoscenti in 1933.

While the story and production are impossible to take seriously, Holt and Wray make it very watchable, and the rest of it is just camp. Critically, I can't give this film high marks, but it's too fun to pass up.

Who Wouldn't At Least Try?

[boblipton · 6/10 · 2 March 2021]

Jack Holt returns to North Africa. The men working the site think he's returned to retake control of the oil production he spent years building. In truth, he's done with the oil business. He has returned to take Fay Wray with him. There are two problems. The lesser one is she's married to Donald Cook, whom he put in control of the works. The greater one is that the operation is falling to pieces, with the depredation of rebel general Noah Beery.

Holt was Columbia's biggest stars, one of the few actors Columbia had under contract, and he was their go-to lead for tough guy roles. Yet director Irving Cummings has his DP, under-rated Benjamin Kline, shoot the scenes -- almost none of which take place outside a studio set --to favor Miss Wray, a gauzy look in which shes often lounging on a day bed and looking swell. The story certainly favors Holt, who plays a straight-talking tough guy, and the gradual revelation f his character makes this a good movie. Also, the scenes with Beery are very funny.

One of the most ruthless leading characters ever to be on film.

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 16 June 2019]

As we know from the TV series "Dallas", the oil business is filled with treachery, sabotage and betrayal. For oil man Jack Holt working in the Arabian desert, the audience learns very quickly of the nature of his ruthlessness. He has women desperate to trap him (the exotic Raquel Torres) as willing to kill him if they fail, and women willing to cheat on their husbands with him, even if the husband is Holt's best friend. The betraying wife is none other than Fay Wray, married to Donald Cook, once Holt best friend, who tells them both off in a very dramatic fashion, making points about how power corrupts and creates immorality in one soul when they seek to gain what is not rightfully theirs.

It seems there are no lessons to be learned for Holt, one of the oddest leading men of the 1930's. Hard-looking and almost maniacal in appearance, he could show softness when the plot called for it but in this case, there is very little redeemable about his character. Wray seems to be going where she knows that riches will follow, even if it means cheating on a husband who very much loves her even if he is disgusted by her actions. Her character proves herself to be very amoral

The featured cast is filled with character actors whose faces you may recognize but names you won't know, and they include Noah Beery as an Arab sheik and Edwin Maxwell as one of the many victims of Holt's ruthlessness. This isn't a great film by any nature but it does have a few memorable moral lessons to share, and Holt's powerful performance shows a man on a path of self-destruction that he is unable to control and that will destroy him if he doesn't wake up. Its exotic setting is another highlight that adds depth to the complicated plot.

Great story. Pre-code. Classic line at end.

[paul-oppedisano · 8/10 · 7 June 2005]

I love movies from the 30's and this is one of my favorites. A great premise for a story. A successful business man returns to the site where he built his company presumably to get it back in gear but he's really there to take the wife of the man he left there to run the business back home with him. Intense confrontations with charismatic personalities and dialog.

It might remind some of RED DUST where Clark Gable is running a business in the far east just as the main character is here except it's an oil company I believe. But instead of the conflict being between two women, the conflict is two men wanting the same woman.

Fans of Fay Wray can see her in a role that is not overwhelmed with her screaming as in King Kong and she is not entirely sympathetic here.

The two men are the focus of the story as they begin as adversaries but gradually become friends. I think it does a great job of bringing the characters to a new understanding of themselves. A woman gets in the way of a friendship between two men. I can't remember what happens to the woman but I don't think she fares too well but not too badly either. I don't think it's misogynistic in other words.

Great entertainment. And you'll love the final scene.