Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Interesteg What makes it different from others?

SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Igenlode Wordsmith I love a good weepie -- particularly when I have no idea in advance that it's going to be one; every so often my over-the-top spoiler-avoiding policy does pay off in trumps! -- and this film turns out to be a real corker. I haven't seen so much surreptitious sniffling among the audience after the lights went up since "A Matter of Life and Death": and that's a compliment.Perhaps it's no surprise that this is the first of the early Capra films to really click into place with me so far, given that I've found that the most successful scenes from his silents have been the poignant moments rather than the sometimes crude treatment of the humour -- Mack Sennett's influence perhaps hard to shake. This time the director gets a sparkling dialogue script and a stellar leading lady in a five-star "woman's picture", and for my money the results exceed those from some of the better-known 'Capraesque' films of his later years.Having recently seen and been disappointed by the celebrated "An Affair to Remember", I would add that "Ladies of Leisure", clearly falling in the same genre, managed to succeed for me where the later melodrama somehow failed to deliver. The banter is involving, the characters engaging, and the central romance -- despite falling under all the cases of cliché and despite my initial longing in both cases to see expectations undermined -- manages to break through in convincing reversal and enlist my sympathies utterly. I was particularly engaged by Ralph Graves, who infuses what could have been an all too worthy two-dimensional hero, with scarcely a defect to his character, with a full measure of conviction as a human being and a great deal of likability and charm; I am amazed to see all the specific IMDb criticisms of him as 'wooden' in this role, and wonder if it is a question of English versus American expectations of male behaviour. I found him delightful in a role that could easily have been played very badly.Barbara Stanwyck, of course, is the central figure, depicting with utter believability both the hard-as-nails shell of the party girl for hire whom Jerry first meets, and the glimpse of 'Hope' that inspires him to employ her as a model for a new painting -- and then spend frustrating days trying to relocate beneath her wise-cracking, gum-chewing exterior! In her scene with Jerry's mother she plays out the time-honoured renunciation theme with the passion and conviction of a Violetta Valery; indeed it's hard not to hear echoes of "La Traviata" in her role here. And if you have ever longed to hear the 'fallen woman' in this situation instead answer back her sanctimonious accuser with "No, I won't give him up and you can't make me -- get out!", Miss Stanwyck flings all the fire and justification into the defiance for which one could wish; even if she eventually lapses into allowing herself to be beaten down by convention. Fortunately, she has what Violetta lacked: a pragmatic friend with both feet upon the ground and no qualms about eavesdropping when clearly necessary...The long-delayed love scenes are so real as to be tactile in their intensity, the sparing and well-delivered poignancies tear at your heart, the melodrama has your pulse racing, yet the film is often also very funny. The banter between the two girls is as hard-boiled with dry fizz as that of any Warner Brothers product, and Lowell Sherman, dissolutely charming and almost permanently sozzled, is the heroine's male counterpart in more ways than one, though Kay's streetwise wits are a match for almost anyone. There is a hilarious scene where Dot is attempting to lose weight via a patent machine at the same time as trying to answer the door, an echo of earlier physical humour amid dozens of moments that are half-laugh, half-tears.The only acting that I felt sometimes struck the wrong note was that of the older generation, Nance O'Neill and George Fawcett as Jerry's parents, who slide a little too far into the sonorous melodrama vein when it comes to the big confrontations. Otherwise, from its bombs-on-the-sidewalk smash opening to its final fadeout, this film rarely puts a foot wrong. It could so easily have been utterly hackneyed; films that go for high emotion gamble everything on transfixing the audience out of potential disbelief. Instead, it resonates not only with the audience and mores of its era but down to our own. Miss Stanwyck deserved to be a star on this showing, and she would be.

Neil Doyle Considering that movies only began to talk in 1928, this early sound film starring BARBARA STANWYCK as a girl of ill repute (she calls herself a party girl), and RALPH GRAVES as an artist who wants to use her as a model, is not bad at all. It's certainly one of the better jobs in sound recording for a film made in the early '30s. As usual with films of this period, there is almost no music on the soundtrack except for the moment when "The End" is flashed on the screen. In the TCM print I watched, the screen then fades to black while some "exit" music is played against a dark screen.Stanwyck is the prostitute with a heart of gold who finds a good man and doesn't want to let him go, even when his family objects to their union when he proposes marriage. She is convinced by the mother to give him up--but circumstances change after she makes a rash decision.Stanwyck is excellent at conveying the brassy qualities of the character, but then reveals the softer nature of the girl as she falls in love with the man who only wants to paint her portrait. The tenderness of the romance that develops is full of nuances that one wouldn't expect from a Frank Capra film. The sentimental ending is more in keeping with his usual style.RALPH GRAVES gives a quiet, assured performance as the man who finds that he does really love Stanwyck. LOWELL SHERMAN does his usual schtick as an inebriated friend who flounces around making wisecracks. MARIE PREVOST has some good moments as Stanwyck's roommate and NANCE O'NEIL does a good job as Grave's well-meaning mother.Stanwyck fans will appreciate her well modulated performance.

MartinHafer I was very surprised by this early talkie. While it begins very much like an exploitative Pre-Code film like Barbara Stanwyck's BABY FACE, this film turns out to be quite different. Now some of the material in this film probably would not have made it past the censors in post-1934 Hollywood, this isn't a sleazy film. Though I enjoy occasionally watching some of the wilder and raunchier Pre-Code sizzlers, this is not one of them, as Stanwyck's character is not the amoral gold digger you think she might be.Early in the film, a bored rich guy (Ralph Graves) leaves a party early and meets up with Stanwyck--who narrowly escaped a party that was too wild for her taste. He takes her home and proposes that she come to work for him as a model, as he's trying to start a career as a painter. It's pretty obvious that she is just a "good time girl" but Graves sees her as the ideal subject of his new painting. When word of his spending time with this loose woman spreads, Graves' parents are distressed and dad threatens to disown him. However, in the meantime, Stanwyck and Graves have fallen in love and plan on marrying--as Stanwyck has given up her wicked ways and wants to be a good wife. But, when she receives a visit from the man's mother, she has second thoughts in a very touching scene. See the rest of the film to find out how all this is resolved.While this is definitely a soap opera-like movie and has many very emotional moments, somehow director Frank Capra and Stanwyck managed to avoid sappiness and seems true. In fact, while many of her later films are far more famous, this is one of her best performances--with what seem to be real emotions when she acts--complete with tears. Because of this, a rather standard film manages to be so much more--and is well worth watching.By the way, another reviewer stated that only the silent version is available. However, just recently Turner Classic Movies did play the sound version and my review is based on this one. For a 1930 talking film, the sound quality was pretty good and very watchable.

yarborough This movie is one of the legendary Barbara Stanwyck's earliest starring roles. The title of the movie actually refers to prostitutes and that is what Stanwyck plays in this one, though it is, of course, only suggested. The set-up is that Stanwyck, a prostitute, is hired by a painter to be a model for one of his paintings. Through the course of the movie, Stanwyck's character, who has never know real love, is touched by the young painter's caring gestures (though to him, he is only being polite). As always, the beautiful Stanwyck carries the movie in the palm of her hand, and when the film is serious, it's pretty decent. Some problems arise in the humorous scenes with her chubby co-star (who died later in the decade because of self-starvation), a stereotypical, high-pitched, talkative New York girl who has too much of a silly vaudevillian personality to generate many laughs (remember, this is early 1930 and vaudeville was just beginning to wind down). Like a lot of early talkies, this movie is roughly edited, and the acting by the male lead is somewhat wooden. The story is okay, perhaps a bit too sentimental, but the movie is an interesting glance into the 1930s and the early stages of a screen Goddess' career.