StunnaKrypto Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

bkoganbing Bed Of Roses is the fourth and final film that Joel McCrea and Constance Bennett did which certainly should qualify them as a screen team. Paired by RKO Pictures the two worked well together.The fact that both Bennett and Pert Kelton are a pair of prostitutes recently released from prison qualifies this film as a before the Code classic. The picture is quite frank about what they do.In fact they're back doing it as soon as they're released shows they haven't repented. But both are looking for some comfortable permanent arrangements. For Kelton she manages to rope a traveling salesman, but in that same dodge Bennett jumps off a Mississipi riverboat fleeing from the captain after she's caught rolling another of the salesman for his dough.Where she's picked up by Joel McCrea who runs and lives on a cotton barge. Thanks, but no thanks says Bennett, she's after bigger game and lands it in the person of New Orleans millionaire John Halliday.I won't say any more, you know how this will end. And remember this is before the Code went in place. The lack of the Code made motion pictures a lot more free with details, but the American movie-going public expected stories to go a certain way.What might have been nice is a bit more of Pert Kelton, her scenes have some real bite to them, but Bennett and McCrea acquit themselves well here.

moonspinner55 Constance Bennett and Pert Kelton are a comical hoot playing two small-time hustlers on the make for wealthy husbands; Joel McCrea is a riverboat skipper who falls for Constance, who gives the earthy captain nothing but heartache. Extremely brief early talkie directed by Gregory La Cava, who also worked on the screenplay. McCrea is attractive and likable (as usual), and there are several snappy dialogue exchanges, amusing interplay between the gals. Nice collection of character actors in the supporting cast, including Jane Darwell as a prison matron. Nothing extraordinary, but a fairly fun outing with a satisfying wrap-up. ** from ****

laursene ... the scene in the second half of the film in which most of the principals attend a costume ball. Connie Bennett and Pert Kelton both appear in fancy dress, in masks, with cordial smiles on their faces and the main chance in their hearts. It's a delicious moment that sums up the whole movie: the way life is about role-playing, the way it delights us and defeats us. Playing the game is the point, according to our preceptor LaCava, and here everyone plays it most engagingly.Cheers also for the scene where Bennett visits McCrea one morning on his scow, and watches him shave. No doe-eyed innocents here: he knows the score, so does she, and we, of course, can read between the lines.

jotix100 Gregory LaCava, shows he is a very inspired director with "Bed of Roses" a film that dealt frankly with things that were to be forgotten when the Hays Code was finally enforced in 1934. This was a different Hollywood, one that took chances in presenting things the way they were, and without being hypocritical about them.This was obvious a vehicle for Constance Bennett, the beautiful actress. She plays Lorry Evans, who has just been released from jail. Together with her partner, Minnie Brown, they hit New Orleans in search for a meal ticket, preferably a rich man to keep them in style.Lorry finds such a man in Steve Paige, who is more than generous, but he demands something that the beautiful Lorrie doesn't feel for him, love! She meets hunky Dan Walters, and it's love at first sight, or so it seems. The only problem is that Dan is a poor man who can't give Lorrie what she has been used to.As far as the melodrama goes, it's pretty conventional. What made an impression on this viewer was the frankness in which the subject matter is presented. Constance Bennett and Joel McCrea are perfect together. Both of them were attractive and young, in contrast with "sugar daddy" John Halliday, who keeps reminding Lorrie about her new acquired tastes. Pert Kelton, is seen as Minnie in a fantastic performance.This was a film produced in Hollywood before the Code and it shows.