Two Kinds of Women

Senator Krull of South Dakota (Irving Pichel) is planning a trip to New York City to preach against New York City. His daughter Emma (Miriam Hopkins) pleads with dad to take her with him. She is devoted to him and does want to take care of him, but those lights of the big city also beckon.

When she gets there she goes out on the town with a friend and winds up meeting the wealthy Joseph Gresham Jr. (Phillips Holmes). They end up seeing lots of each other and it looks like it is getting serious. But Joe has a secret. He married a party girl one night (Wynne Gibson as Phyllis) and she wants one hundred thousand dollars in order to give him a divorce. They only had the one night together - he hasn't lived with her since the wedding night. And he is right when he says that he could have the marriage annulled because of that. But that would also alert his dad who would kick him out for soiling the family name by getting into such a predicament in the first place. So when Phyllis falls to her death from her high rise apartment, Joe is suspect number one.

If I didn't know when this film was made I would have thought it was one of those made about the time that the production code came into being, because all of the moralizing Senator Krull does just seems over the top unless you are trying to impress a censor. It is extremely puzzling given that this is the reason the Krulls are here in the first place. Why does a South Dakota senator feel it necessary to lecture people in New York? Would a New York senator go to South Dakota to lecture the locals about agriculture subsidies?

Wynne Gibson is good as the party girl wife, and she was always good at brassy parts, but she was usually best when she was playing a person with a good heart and rough edges, and here she is a mercenary person.

I enjoyed this, but it is probably only mildly recommended unless you are a fan of the precode Paramounts as I am.