Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

kidboots Betty Compson was one of the very few silent stars who's career kick started again at the dawn of the talkies. She had a few lucky breaks in her career - first "The Miracle Man"(1919) was her breakthrough to stardom, then when she was almost forgotten Josef von Sternberg came to her rescue with "The Docks of New York", lastly when talkies came in studio heads realised she could play the violin - and loved it in those gimmicky, singie, dancey days. That kept her afloat during the early 30s and she was kept busy with whatever type of genre they threw at her.This role suited her to a tee - she plays June, a girl down on her luck whose first night on "the game" has turned into a cat and mouse chase with two interfering bobbies!! She is saved by Gerald Courtney (Gilbert Emery) who wants to "hire" her as a decoy to lure his son Russell (John Darrow) away from bad booze and bad women - one Berthine (Margaret Livingston). He sees how well June fits into the gentry atmosphere and performs a "Pygmalion" act on her, clothing her from head to foot in the height of fashion.So June and Russell "meet" and she proves she can be a real pal to him so he soon forgets Berthine but June finds herself falling in love with his father and Gerald more than reciprocates!! All very complicated as of course Russell falls in love with her and the knowledge that not only has he been duped but his rival is his own father is enough to send him scuttling back to Berthine - and she is happy to oblige!! But Berthine has a jealous lover (Ivan Lebedeff) who has shown from the start that if she crosses him, she will never cross again and before you know it Russell is arrested for murder.The setting was London and Compson showed she had really soaked up the accents and atmosphere from her trips to England in the 1920s. John Darrow was a pretty poor actor who never escaped poverty row, Margaret Livingston had been a silent vamp ("Sunrise") whose career foundered in the talkies but she found lasting happiness as Mrs. Paul Whiteman!!

earlytalkie I saw this film on YouTube and was rather impressed by it. The adult themes of the interesting story held my attention, but what really sold me was, to me, the always-good Betty Compson, an actress whose heyday was in the silent films, and though she couldn't sing or dance, became quite popular in the early talkie days by virtue of the fact that she not only had a fine speaking voice, but she could really act. She's just fine playing the street girl with the heart-of-gold here, and the story and settings are good as well. If I can fault the production, it's in the fact that, despite being set in London, no one (save for Daphne Pollard) speaks with anything like a British accent. I chalk this up to it's "early talkie" status and the fact that, perhaps in those days, the producers weren't sure that a genuine British accent would go over with a "Yank" audience. The theme music over the opening and closing credits is "My Dream Memory", from Betty's 1929 picture, Street Girl. In that picture, Betty did her own playing on the violin of that song.

ScenicRoute I agree with the other reviewers: This isn't a great movie because it is too stage bound, the plot is far-fetched, the London setting unconvincing (why not New York?), and some of the acting is wooden or uneven. However, John Darrow is convincing as a talented young man a little too enslaved by his passions, and he is sexually alive and compelling. Betty Compson is great - hers is the performance that make this and so many other pre-Production Code movies worthwhile. She has no shame about who she is (nor has Margaret Livingston, who appears to have stepped out of Valley of the Dolls), and her last speech earns the movie a 7 in my book. She is completely liberated, though she knows how to and does pay lip-service to conventional morality. It is this combination, the lip-service combined with the complete independence, that makes this pre-Production Code movie (among many) so radical. Her final scene eloquently gives the lie to conventional morality and left me agape. No need for the 1960s-lib genre with movies like this.

MartinHafer This film isn't particularly outstanding in so many ways. Some of the acting and plot elements were rather pedestrian (at best) and the plot is very hard to believe, but despite all this I actually enjoyed the film more than my score of 6 might indicate. That's because this is a "Pre-Code" film (actually, this term should be "Early-Code") and I find these films VERY entertaining relics from our past. The Hays Office was created in the 1920s to enforce morality and decency in the film industry, but it was still in its early days and studios routinely ignored it until the stronger "Production Code" was adopted in 1935. Up until then, films were often amazingly risqué and adult--even by today's standards. A few examples of the things that led to the Hays Office being created and strengthened were: --The 1920s version of BEN HUR, in which there was quite a bit of nudity and violence--and this was a Biblical Epic! --The film PARACHUTE JUMPER includes a scene where Frank McHugh is hitchhiking. When a car passes without stopping, his thumb instantly becomes a middle-finger! --In BIRD OF PARADISE, TARZAN THE APE MAN and THE BARBARIAN, there were some very explicit bathing scenes in which you see a lot of Delores Del Rio, Maureen O'Sullivan and Myrna Loy! While THE LADY REFUSES doesn't include nudity, it is definitely a "Pre-Code"-style film because of the very adult themes. The leading lady (Betty Compson) plays a prostitute "with a heart of gold" who is hired by a man to seduce away his son from a "gold-digger"! And, later both the son AND father fall for this prostitute and want to marry her! Oddly, however, the words 'prostitute', 'hooker' nor any of the other slang terms for the profession are used in the film--though it's very clear that this is Ms. Compson's job. In addition to this adult aspect of the film, the son twice spends the night in Ms. Compson's bed and everyone in the film THINKS that they were fornicating (though they weren't). Such innuendo NEVER would have been tolerated just a few years later.Now despite all these sleazy elements, the movie itself is pretty entertaining and well-made--and definitely kept my interest. Ms. Compson was a dandy actress in the film and it's sad her career as a talking picture leading lady slowly fizzled. As for John Darrow and Gilbert Emery, they both were pretty poor at times--having some trouble with their lines and occasionally over or under-acting. It wasn't bad enough to severely hinder the film, but it was noticeable if you were paying close attention.The bottom line is that for fans of the "Pre-Code" films or film buffs, this is a MUST-SEE film. For most others, it's a time-passer or eminently one you can skip.